


by this time next year

by reeology



Series: by this time next year and related stories [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Future Fic, Getting Together, M/M, Misunderstandings, Third Year KageHina, University KageHina, gratuitous use of the f word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3634377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeology/pseuds/reeology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I got offers from two universities," Kageyama announces, pointing at his chest with his thumb. "I'm going to play volleyball at Keio this spring."</p><p>"You still have to pass an exam, even if it's an easy one," Takeda-sensei hurries to add, although he is beaming and bursting with pride at his fluffy little crow chick taking off to play volleyball at a university level.</p><p>"I'll pass," Kageyama says with the same kind of confidence he uses when he tells Hinata he'll get the toss to him. He looks straight at Hinata, and Hinata jerks and turns red, wondering if maybe Kageyama knew he was daydreaming about something as stupid as the way Kageyama talks to him during a game. But then Kageyama just points at him and says, "You'd better get in, too."</p><p>Hinata, stupid, naive, idiot that he is, grins wide and nods and says, "Yeah!"</p><p>He doesn't know what he's in for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by [CaseyValhalla](http://caseyvalhalla.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Title is from Come Downstairs and Say Hello by Guster.

Kageyama gets scouted first.

A man with a clipboard and a red baseball cap shows up to the final match of Tohoku Regionals, his cell phone glued to his ear. Hinata notices him right away and thinks unfriendly thoughts at him for wearing something baseball-related at a volleyball game. If he's going to watch their match, the least he can do is wear Karasuno's colors. The red reminds him of Nekoma, and he jumps harder, higher than before and feels frustrated when he slaps empty air because Kageyama sends the toss to some second year wing spiker.

That same second year spikes the ball into the net, and Kageyama gives him a dressing down that leaves him wobbling and teary-eyed. But when Kageyama sets for him again, Hinata notices the ball goes fast and smooth to an opening even Noya-senpai would have been hard pressed to cover.

And that's when the guy in the hat snaps his cell phone shut and walks away, pushing through the cheering squad and chants of _go, go, let's go, let's go, Karasuno!_

They win that game, because of course they fucking do, and Hinata doesn't give the man in the red hat a second thought until mid-July when Takeda-sensei leaves in the middle of practice. In theory, Hinata should be done with volleyball after spring, but their senpai that first year had started a new tradition, a new legacy, and now everyone knew third year volleyball club members stuck it out until graduation day. Hinata is ultra curious why Takeda-sensei would leave like that, so Hinata's watching when he runs back in about ten minutes later, bright-faced and ecstatic. Takeda-sensei leans up and whispers in Coach Ukai's ear, and they spend a while talking too much with their hands, and Hinata gets hit in the face twice for not paying attention to practice.

"Kageyama," Coach barks when practice ends, beckoning him over.

Kageyama looks at the broom he was getting out and puts it in Hinata's hand. Hinata squawks at him, hops up and down and yells about passing off work and team effort, and Kageyama ignores him. Hinata pouts at his back for a moment, then squares his shoulders and darts off with the broom and a yell, determined to finish the floors so fast he can jump on Kageyama's back and demand to be involved in their stupid, secret pow-wow.

He doesn't really have to wait long to figure it out, though, because all of a sudden Kageyama's yell of "Yes!" and pumped fist take over the gym and everyone is trampling over to see what's going on. It's the same noise, the same gesture he makes after a really awesome quick set. Hinata himself is there, bouncing and half-draped on Kageyama's shoulder, saying, "What is it? What is it?"

Kageyama shrugs him off with the smuggest asshole grin of all time and says, "Nothing."

"Kageyama!" he whines, and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi are--well, not wheedling, but glaring and saying, "Come on, Kageyama, tell us," alongside him.

Coach and Takeda-sensei exchange a glance and then nod, and Kageyama's grin, if possible, becomes even more obnoxious.

"I got offers from two universities," he announces, pointing at his chest with his thumb. "I'm going to play volleyball at Keio this spring."

"You still have to pass an exam, even if it's an easy one," Takeda-sensei hurries to add, although he is beaming and bursting with pride at his fluffy little crow chick taking off to play volleyball at a university level.

"I'll pass," Kageyama says with the same kind of confidence he uses when he tells Hinata he'll get the toss to him. He looks straight at Hinata, and Hinata jerks and turns red, wondering if maybe Kageyama knew he was daydreaming about something as stupid as the way Kageyama talks to him during a game. But then Kageyama just points at him and says, "You'd better get in, too."

Hinata, stupid, naive, idiot that he is, grins wide and nods and says, "Yeah!"

He doesn't know what he's in for.

* * *

To celebrate, Coach Ukai takes the team to a karaoke bar as Takeda-sensei harps on about the importance of responsibility.

"Don't worry, don't worry, I won't let them order anything alcoholic," Coach says, but he winks at them over Takeda-sensei's ruffled hair. Hinata isn't surprised when Kageyama's drink comes out with a subtle red straw in it and Coach is very, very careful about making sure it goes to Kageyama and Kageyama only.

"Lemme try," Hinata insists, sprawled on the cushion next to him as a second year warbles along to kpop and Yamaguchi tries to coax Tsukishima to pick out a song.

Kageyama scowls a little but hands the drink over. "Don't drink all of it."

So of course Hinata does just that, hollowing out his cheeks as he sucks up the whole drink, snort-laughing and batting Kageyama away as Kageyama tries to steal it back. It tastes subtle, Hinata thinks. A good choice for Kageyama, who wouldn't be caught dead drinking anything pink or umbrella'd. It's just Coke with something a little stronger, a little burn that slides down his throat and goes down smooth. The straw slurps as it hits only ice and Hinata pulls off with a loud, refreshed "ah!" and Kageyama smacks the back of his head.

"Dumbass. What did I just say?" He shakes his head and waves at Coach, who looks both impressed and concerned that Hinata drank it so quickly. He picks the phone off the wall and murmurs something into it. When the waitress comes back with a drink tray, there are two 'Cokes' for both Kageyama and Hinata, and Coach grins and gives them a thumbs up.

The thumbs up doesn't escape Takeda-sensei's notice, who squawks and fusses like a mother hen until Coach ruffles his hair and puts the microphone in his hands.

Takeda-sensei sings a rousing rendition of the Love Hime opening as Hinata and Kageyama cover their ears and laugh. The laughter feels a little hollow for Hinata, even though he's happy for Kageyama, he really is. But he'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little jealous, too.

"I'm gonna get scouted next," he says loudly and boldly. The waitress pops in with a tray again and leaves some kind of pizza, which Hinata takes great glee in devouring faster than anyone else. Kageyama picks up a slice before it's all gone and just holds it with both hands, staring at it.

"You'd better," Kageyama says eventually.

"I will!" Hinata swallows and almost chokes because he's eating too fast. He washes down the pizza with another huge, cheek-hollowing drink of whatever the hell Coach is sneaking them. "Just you watch. And it's gonna be by Keio, too, or--or maybe somewhere better!"

"Keio is the best," Kageyama deadpans. He takes a small bite of crust and smiles, just a tiny bit.

"You'll see," Hinata says. He reaches for another pizza slice, but Tsukishima smacks his hand away and says something about not getting scouted if he gets fat.

Coach sneaks them another round of drinks, and then Takeda-sensei cuts them off and insists on walking them home.

* * *

Hinata's first clue that he may have signed himself up for an impossible task comes right on the heels of a school career survey. He fills out his top three schools, Keio appropriately at #1, and hands it into his homeroom teacher. When she reads it, she jerks like she's been shocked, then she recovers nicely and says, "Hinata-kun, can you come to the office after school?"

"I've got practice," he says automatically.

Sensei looks a bit surprised. "Isn't volleyball practice in the mornings?"

"Yes, but." He squirms, shoots a look at Kageyama, who is staring at him. He lowers his voice and says, "I'm practicing extra now."

"I see." Sensei's eyes scan down Hinata's survey and come to rest on his chosen profession: professional volleyball player, written cramped in the margin because there was no box to check. Not the normal response of scientist or teacher or whatever.

Hinata grips the side of the desk and says, "But we could meet at lunch!" overly loud and enthusiastic.

Sensei says okay, and Hinata is released, allowed to file back to his desk. Kageyama smacks the back of his head without any real malice and says, "What was that?"

"I don't know," Hinata says, because he really doesn't. He's just got a bad feeling, some tense, anxious feeling low in his gut.

* * *

Kageyama glares at him when he makes some excuse about not being able to sit together and talk game strategy at lunch. He waves his hand and says, "Sorry, it's not my fault! Sensei wants to talk about my future or something."

"Don't miss practice," Kageyama scoffs, and gives him a piece of melon bread.

"You're in the volleyball club, right?" Sensei asks as she pulls Hinata's survey out of a folder and places it on her desk. "You want to play professionally?"

"Yes!" Hinata says like there's no other answer in the world. To him, there isn't. Other teachers' heads poke up over the cubicle walls and glare at him, and he realizes he's yelling.

"Okay," Sensei says with a look on her face like she's eaten something sour. She taps Hinata's list of school choices and says, "Keio is a very prestigious university."

Hinata nods rapidly. "Yeah."

She hesitates. "The way your grades are now, there's no way you can get in."

Hinata nods some more. He already knows this. "I'm going to study really hard!"

"Hinata-kun…" Sensei pulls her glasses off her face and sighs. The sour look intensifies. "There's no delicate way to put this. I'm not sure if you're capable of passing the entrance exam. If you're really serious about this, you have to go to cram school. You should have already been in cram school, actually. You might even have to give up volleyball."

"No way!" he says. More heads poke out over cubicle walls and scowl, but he doesn't see them. The answer to _what do you want to do with your life?_ has been haunting him, stealing his sleep. He's been thinking about it since Kageyama got scouted, probably even before then. He doesn't think he can spike a ball that isn't tossed by Kageyama, as stupid as that sounds. There is only volleyball, and he will follow it wherever it will take him. He will clip his bangs back and tie motivational bandanas around his head and drink too much coffee and read English books until his eyes bleed. He will follow Kageyama if it kills him, if only to prove he's good enough.

Sensei sighs again, like she's going to deflate entirely and blow away, and picks through another stack of folders on her desk. She plucks out a neatly-printed list on white paper and hands it to Hinata.

"Here," she says. "These are the cram schools I recommend for someone aiming for Keio. If you put as much effort into studying as you put into volleyball, you might have a chance."

"Sensei," he says in awe. He feels like he's going to tear up. He wants to hug her.

Perhaps sensing this, Sensei scoots her chair away and says, "You're dismissed. There's still time to eat lunch if you hurry."

"Yeah," he says, remembering the melon bread in his satchel. "Thanks!"

"Hurry up, then," she says, and Hinata scrambles out before she can sigh at him again.

* * *

There are three possible ways Hinata can spend his time: playing volleyball, studying, or sleeping. Sensei recommends studying and sleeping. Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei recommend playing volleyball and sleeping. Kageyama doesn't recommend anything because he's an asshole.

Hinata considers himself an unlimited bundle of energy and potential, so he opts for studying and playing volleyball. No sleep. Not until March, anyway.

In the morning, he wakes up and runs to school to open the gym. Half the time Kageyama's already there, the lights on and the net set up, practicing jump serves in perfect form. Those times Hinata likes to sneak in, set his bag down silently, and then roll onto the court yelling, "ROLLING THUNDER!" and send the ball back to him. Kageyama usually snorts, which is his version of a laugh, and they both smile at the memory of their energetic senpai.

Then the rest of the team filters in, in groups and pairs, and they stretch and start practice properly. Kageyama is team captain, only because he's a dick and tripped Hinata when they raced for the position, and Hinata is vice captain. They act like Daichi and Suga without quite realizing it--Kageyama scaring the shit out of the new recruits and Hinata calming them down and giving pep talks. It works for them. This morning, reassuring a first year that Kageyama will not actually throw him in the river if he can't receive every serve he sends him, he thinks to himself that cram school will be worth it even if it's utter hell. Everything will be worthwhile if he can stand on another court with Kageyama and guide another shaking kouhai to the bench.

When practice ends and Hinata zooms down the floor with the broom, Kageyama stands on the sideline and 'supervises' like he's hot shit and says, "What cram school are you going to?"

"I'm--going to--two," Hinata says, adding a word or two on each pass. "English--and--regular."

Kageyama opens his mouth, but then a volleyball hits him in the side of the head and a chorus of screams rises from the other side of the gym ("You idiot! He's going to kill us!"). A gaggle of second years duck behind the bleachers. Kageyama says, "Hold that thought," and stalks down the court with an aura of murderous intent.

Once all the brooms and balls and nets are folded in the closet and the club room is properly locked, it's time for class. Hinata digs the piece of paper out of his satchel and hands it to Kageyama, saying, "I'm going to the two on top."

They act like it's a coincidence when Kageyama shows up to the same cram school the next week. When Hinata feels like his eyes really are going to bleed if he has to learn one more English phrase, he passes Kageyama notes. Doodles of the teacher as a fire-breathing dragon, questions about who should be on starting rotation. Kageyama unfolds each one with his stupid half-smile but never writes back. Hinata doesn't stop sending them though.

* * *

"Wake up!" Coach Ukai snaps.

Hinata tries to blink his eyes open. The best he can do is open one halfway. He's distantly aware that he's swaying, standing on his feet in his practice clothes in the gym. A volleyball rolls past him.

"Hmmmrghrrr?" he says.

Coach slaps him on the back. "Hinata-kun, look alive! Why are you so tired?" He leans close and whispers, "You're not hungover, are you? I haven't started a whole big fuckin' thing, have I?"

Hinata's brain tries to process that. They're on break, but they still have volleyball practice for hours every day, and he still goes to cram school and forces himself to study until the sun comes up. He prides himself on his crazy stamina and refuses to take a break. He definitely hasn't had time to do anything fun like drink.

"I'm not hungover. 'm just tired."

"Tired?" Coach yells, apparently satisfied he hasn't turned the vice captain of the volleyball club into a tragically underage drunk. He looks like he's gearing up for a tirade on the weakness of sleep, but Takeda-sensei interrupts by handing Hinata a few hundred yen coins and saying, "Why don't you get a coffee, Hinata-kun?"

Coffee. Coffee is important. He finds himself nodding, and his feet shuffle toward the hallway, disconnected from his body. Coffee. He has to find coffee.

"You're pushing yourself too hard," Kageyama's voice says from inside the vending machine.

"Eh?" Hinata stares at the vending machine. He taps the front and says, "Kageyama?"

Kageyama appears from around the other side. "What're you doing? Are you talking to the vending machine?"

"I thought you were inside," he says, so tired he's not even aware of how stupid that sounds. He tries three times to slide in a coin before Kageyama sighs like he's the biggest burden ever, wrenches the coins out of his hand, and puts them in the machine for him.

"What do you want?"

"Coffee," he says, watching Kageyama's fingers hovering over the different options.

Kageyama rolls his eyes. "I assumed. What kind of coffee? Milk? Sugar?"

"Milk and sugar." He's distantly aware that Kageyama is kind of taking care of him, and normally he'd be more excited about this show of companionship, but right now he's too fucking exhausted to care. He's gotten a grand total of six hours of sleep so far this week, and it's Wednesday. He's considering propping his eyes open with matchsticks to get his way through this week's assigned reading of classic Japanese literature.

The vending machine spits out a cold can of coffee. Kageyama picks it up and Hinata accepts it, grateful for the cold, slightly bitter taste on his tongue, warding off the intense August heat.

Kageyama watches him for a moment, eyebrows drawn together, stern and maybe a little worried. "You don't have to go this far for me."

Sleepily, Hinata squints at him over the top of the can and says, "Yeah, I do. Who else can hit your toss?"

It's the most intelligible thing he's said all day. Kageyama has no reply.

* * *

In August, before Inter High, everyone gets the week off from practice and cram school for Obon. Hinata thinks maybe he'll finally get the chance to catch up on sleep, to remember what it's like to not feel completely exhausted, to stay in bed until the sun blazes in through his window and wakes him up naturally. He's looking forward to it.

Then his mom shakes him awake at the crack of satan's ass saying he has to help clean the house and buy vegetables for the offering, and that dream goes right out the window. On the way to the market, he stops and buys another coffee from a vending machine and presses the cool can against his forehead for a while. He falls asleep standing up for a few minutes until a passerby accidentally whacks him with a plastic bag full of convenience store food, and he gives himself a good shake and hunts down the fruit and vegetable stand.

As he's walking back home, drinking a second coffee from a vending machine, he pulls out his phone and sends Kageyama a mail.

Subject: _obon  
_ Text: _does ur mom wig out over obon like mine does?_

He's not expecting a response, so it makes him feel kind of giddy when his phone dings and there's a reply from Kageyama.

Subject: _idiot.  
_ Text: _mine is worse._

Hinata wants to ask about that, but a second later he gets a picture mail of Kageyama's scowling face next to a bucket, a brush, and a gravestone. He checks the time and sees it's not even nine yet but Kageyama's is already cleaning the family's graves.

Subject: _ok  
_ Text: _you win_

He hits send, then tucks the phone away as he walks up to his house.

"I'm home," he yells, filled with the vigor of too much caffeine, and kicks his shoes off in the genkan.

His mom and Natsu have finished cleaning the house and decorating the butsudon with flowers, so all that's left is cleaning up the graves. The smell of incense in the graveyard is overwhelming and immediately gives him a headache, and he walks behind his mom and Natsu as they lead the way to his ancestors.

He finds himself getting distracted looking for Kageyama's crabby face among all the others at the graveyard. He never finds him, and he doesn't get any more texts.

And it doesn't matter, anyway, because his mom yells something about respecting his ancestors when she sees him checking his phone instead of pulling the overgrown ivy off of grandma's tombstone.

The second day of Obon, he finally gets some fucking sleep, and he pries his crusty eyelids open after twelve glorious hours of sleep, feeling mildly human. He grabs his volleyball before his mom can ask him to help with the lanterns and spends the whole afternoon smacking it against the wall outside until he's called back in to get ready for the festival.

Hinata's yukata is dark, solid blue and slightly too big for him. The obi is tan and a little crooked, and his mom fusses over it endlessly, saying he has to look presentable in front of the ancestors. They both know she doesn't actually believe in that crap, and Hinata suspects it's an excuse to parade him in front of the neighborhood like, 'look at my son Hinata, he's all grown up now and vice captain of the volleyball club, don't you wish he was _your_ son?'

A little bragging isn't the worst thing in the world, so he suffers through it with minimal whining ("mooooooOOOOOOOOoooOoom!") and watches with sadistic glee as Natsu's bow is fluffed and primped and an eye-searingly brightly patterned fan is stuck in the sash. She has ribbons in her hair and a little patterned bag dangles from her tiny wrist, which she swings back and forth like she's trying to fling it into the sun. The pink flowers on the yukata clash terribly with her hair, but she still looks adorable somehow.

"Are we all ready?" his mom asks brightly, clapping her hands together. Her own yukata is dark blue, like Hinata's, but peppered with lighter geometric patterns throughout.

"Ossu," Hinata says automatically, forgetting he's not at practice. His mom gives him an amused look and ushers them all out the door.

The festival is being held at the shrine, and Hinata sees the light of the lanterns long before they reach them. They hang in strings from the gates, swaying gently in the wind. A raised stage stands in the center of the shrine, filled with taiko drums and dancers and bright colors. The sound of the drums resonates in Hinata's chest, all the way to his bones, completely energizing him.

He finds Kageyama standing as far from the festival as he can while still technically attending, and he yells, "Mom, I found Kageyama, bye!" and runs off before she can ask him to stay with Natsu.

Kageyama is wearing black, because _of course_ he is, and he's also wearing a hat that looks really stupid on him. Kageyama is probably aware of how stupid it looks, because as soon as he sees Hinata coming he rips it off his head and throws it into some bushes.

"Go away," he hisses.

Hinata ignores him, springing onto his back and latching on like a monkey. "Kageyamaaaaaa!"

"Hinata," he grunts. "Get off me."

"No way, you're being so boring over here by yourself. Did you put your lantern in the river yet? Come dance!"

"I do not," Kageyama says, prying Hinata's fingers off his shoulders, " _dance_."

"It's less dancing and more like walking really slowly and moving your arms," Hinata insists. He allows himself to be pried off, but then he grabs Kageyama's arms and starts tugging. When Kageyama digs his heels in, Hinata busts out his trump card, narrowing his eyes and saying, "What would your ancestors think?" in the tone his mom used the day before.

Kageyama sighs, looking like he just bit into a yuzu thinking it was a pork bun, and throws his hands up. "Fine. Five minutes. But don't say I didn't warn you."

Hinata refuses to believe that there wasn't a time Kageyama, young and wearing his first yukata, didn't squeal and run to the circle to dance with the others. He can imagine that small, chubby Kageyama following his mother, mimicking her smooth movements. Crying when he missed a step and lost his geta in the crowd.

Every kid dances at Obon, and Hinata knows you never, ever forget how.

That's why he feels no guilt shoving Kageyama into the circle and jumping in front of him, already leaning into the moves, grinning at the old man in front of him with his equally old wife and the tiny grandbaby toddling alongside. The kid takes one look at Kageyama's face and gulps and hides behind the grandparents. Hinata laughs so hard he thinks he's going to piss himself.

"This is stupid," Kageyama says.

Hinata grabs him and anchors him to the dance circle. "Don't! You have to dance for at least three more minutes. You said."

"I'm horrible at this," Kageyama mutters.

"It's soooo easy," Hinata says. "You just copy what the people on stage do."

Grinning, Hinata lets him go and takes huge, bounding steps forward, 10000% more energetic than everyone around them, moving his arms in huge arcs. He gestures for Kageyama to do the same.

Kageyama, inexplicably, blushes.

Kageyama suffers with dignity for three more minutes, then cuts away from the stage as though the lanterns have fallen and set it ablaze, hiding by his bushes again. Hinata stays and dances a while longer. He sees Natsu and his mom in the crowd, laughing and smiling, and he waves at them even though they don't notice.

Once he's had his fill of dancing for dead people, he wipes the sweat off his face with his sleeve and finds Kageyama. He insists on buying them matching Pikachu masks, which he arranges on Kageyama's head at a rakish tilt, and makes him eat half an order of dango with him.

It's a nice night. It's also probably the longest they've gone without talking about volleyball in two (going on three) years. Hinata turns to comment on this, finds Kageyama staring at him, and abruptly forgets what he was going to say.

Then his mom is yelling for him, saying Natsu is tired and they're going to walk home now, and would he please be a dear and give Natsu a piggy back ride?

"Ummm," he says, staring back at Kageyama. He points toward his family. "I've gotta go. Text me about starters before practice next week?"

"Yeah," Kageyama says. He nods a little belatedly. "Bye."

"Bye."

Natsu is like a sack of adorable but heavy potatoes on his back as he and his mom slowly walk home. It gives him lots of extra time to think about volleyball and Kageyama. He should really spend the weekend studying, he thinks grudgingly. He doesn't want to, but if he slacks off, there's no way he can go to university with Kageyama. And that, he's starting to realize, for whatever reason, is the worst thing that could possibly happen.

* * *

Saying Kageyama gets scouted first implies that someone else gets scouted second. That person is, predictably, Hinata. But the school isn't Keio.

The return of school and volleyball also means the return of sleep deprivation, so at first Hinata thinks maybe he's hallucinating the guy in the Waseda University jacket on the second day of Inter High offering him a spot on the volleyball team. But then Coach Ukai gives him this look like, 'well, what's your answer?' and he realizes this is actually real, like, holy shit, he could go to _Waseda University_ if he fucking wanted to.

But then he looks across the court at the back of a cranky head setting up spike after perfect spike, pretending like he's not attempting to eavesdrop on Hinata's conversation.

"Ummm," he says, tangling his hands in his sweaty T-shirt, under the intense gaze of Coach Ukai, Takeda-sensei, and the guy in the Waseda jacket. "That's a nice offer, but…"

"But?" Waseda jacket says, incredulously.

"ButIwanttogotoKeio," he spits out, red-faced. He dips his head and his sweaty bangs cover his eyes so he doesn't have to look at them anymore.

"KEIO?"

Hinata cringes. Waits for the taunt, the 'that's too prestigious!'--the 'you're just a dumb jock!'

Instead, Waseda guy grits his teeth and slams his fist into his open palm and says, "Our eternal rivals. I won't let them have you."

Hinata blinks at him. "What?"

"I'll convince you to come to Waseda," Waseda guy says, nodding--to himself, to Hinata, to the crowd of onlooking club members. "I'll be back."

"Ummm," Hinata says again. He looks around and sees Tsukishima and Yamaguchi clutching their stomachs, laughing. Kageyama is staring at him intensely.

"You're serious about Keio?" Kageyama asks after Waseda guy leaves, promising to return and steal all the talented recruits before Keio can get their grubby, stuck up, snotty hands on them.

"Of course!" Hinata fists his hands and holds them in front of him earnestly. It's kind of weak and he sways a little.  "I'll go wherever Kageyama goes."

On the other end of the court, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi laugh even harder. "Don't make it gay, Hinata," Tsukishima says, still chuckling.

Hinata puffs out his cheeks and then regrets it when Tsukishima makes a blowjob face and Hinata realizes just what puffing his cheeks out looks like.

"It's not gay," he mutters, mostly to himself, and picks up the volleyball. He turns it over in his hands, staring at it, and says it again: "It's not gay."

They don't win Inter High, but it's okay, because they got there, they really fucking got there. And they still have Spring High that winter.

* * *

In cram school that night, Hinata passes Kageyama a note with a crude stick figure drawing of Yamaguchi blowing Tsukishima. The speech bubble says, "Don't make it gay, Yamaguchi."

Kageyama laughs and then looks surprised about the fact that he actually laughed. For the first time, he writes a response and tosses it at Hinata casually, like this isn't a huge fucking step in their cram school alliance. Hinata unfolds the note, practically vibrating with excitement.

It says: "You're an idiot."

Hinata reads it three times, then smiles to himself, re-folds the note, and tucks it in his pocket next to his phone. They're supposed to be playing some flash card vocabulary game that's already hurting his brain. He can't concentrate, can hardly read the words. His eyes keep slipping closed until the teacher slams her hands on the desk in front of him and he jumps so hard he falls out of his seat.

Kageyama and the teacher laugh, and the teacher sends him outside to wash his face and, presumably, wake the fuck up. He takes a little nap with his head pressed against the wall, then splashes cold water on his face and digs his phone out of his pocket, mostly to check the time. He almost drops his phone when he sees a text from Kenma.

Subject: _no subject.  
_ Text: _whats up_

Kenma has been distant since he went to university last year. He hardly ever texts anymore. Hinata tries to type an intelligible response through slitted eyes and gives up correcting his typos after like the twentieth one.

He ends up sending:

Subject: _stiuing.  
_ Text: _in cyam schiolwhat are yiu doig >_

The reply doesn't come until he's back at his desk next to Kageyama. The buzz is extra loud in the silent room (the teacher looks at him darkly and slides out of her chair) and Hinata reads:

Subject: _no subject.  
_ Text: _did you have a stroke?_

Then the teacher confiscates his phone and locks it in her desk.

" _No cell phones during class_ ," she says in English.

Hinata scrunches up his forehead and says, "Huh?"

" _No--cell--phones_ ," she enunciates exaggeratedly, wagging her finger.

"She means stop texting and start studying," Kageyama says.

"Right!" He remembers he's here for a goal, as ungodly boring and horrible as this class is, and sits up straight with renewed purpose. He flips a flash card and immediately sags when he has no idea what it says. He wants to sleep. He wants to marry his bed. He wants to curl up under his blankets and when he wakes up he wants to be on a university court with Kageyama.

It's not until he's zombie-walking home late that night that he remembers Kenma followed Kuroo to Waseda University, and there wasn't anything weird about that.

Fuck Tsukishima, anyway.

But not in a gay way.

* * *

In September, Hinata passes all his midterms for second term.

It doesn't sound like much, but the fact is Hinata doesn't normally pass his exams. So it's a big deal when he gets 60's in Math and somehow, unbelievably, a 65 circled in red ink at the top of his English exam, his worst subject by far. He turns in his seat and yells, "Kageyama!" and holds it up, grinning and pointing, practically bouncing in his seat.

Kageyama looks surprised, then smirks, and holds up his own exam. 60 in English, 64 in Math. The rest of their subjects are both average.

It's a short-lived victory when Hinata remembers Kageyama doesn't have to worry, since he gets an easier exam with his offer from the volleyball team. Hinata still has to work his ass off, but, with passing scores after three years of barely scraping by, suddenly everything seems a little more attainable.

* * *

It's mostly routine after that. He wakes up, practices, attends school, practices some more, goes to cram school, and then studies until he literally can't keep his eyes open anymore. Most mornings he wakes up face-down on his desk, ink smeared on his cheeks and hands, and an awful crick in his back. There are typically at least a couple mails on his phone from Kageyama, things like,

Subject: _idiot  
_ Text: _are you up yet?_

and

Subject: _wake up  
_ Text: _don't be late!!_

Kageyama is usually waiting outside the club room for him with a coffee from the vending machine. Hinata always accepts it happily and loudly, declaring it to be his life blood, and warms his hands on it as the weather turns colder and the vending machines start stocking the hot kind.

For a while, practice games are the only deviation from the routine. Hinata lives for practice games. He lives for screaming encouragement and listening to the cheer squad, Yachi's support, Takeda-sensei and Coach Ukai overreacting on the bench every time something unexpected happens. Mostly, though, he lives for that moment when he and Kageyama just _know_ , and Hinata runs and jumps and his palm hits the ball.

And that's pretty much how it goes for two months. Warm, balmy days turn to a crisp chill as the leaves turn red and orange. In November, it's time for the Culture Festival, and that's when everything changes.

"It should be a haunted house!" Hinata yells when the class rep asks what the class display should be. Others yell things like "maid cafe!" and "speed dating!" and it comes down to a vote. Haunted house wins by five, and Hinata whoops and punches Kageyama excitedly.

"You can be one of the scary attractions," he says, jumping up and down. "All you have to do is smile like, _gwarr_ , and everyone will be like, _ahhhh_!"

Kageyama glares, but there's also fondness behind it. Hinata can tell.

"Kageyama-kun will not be an exhibit," the class rep says with a frown, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose. "Since this was your idea, Hinata-kun, you and Kageyama-kun can be in charge of the prop designs."

"What," says Kageyama.

The class rep shrinks away from Kageyama, most likely mistaking his default expression of displeasure for a death threat. (He wouldn't be the first.) "Well, at least some of the designs?" he says.

Kageyama stares.

"It's a class effort," says the class rep helplessly.

Hinata takes pity on him by slapping Kageyama on the back and saying, "It's okay, we can handle it, right?"

Kageyama turns that heavy gaze on him, but Hinata's not intimidated by it. He looks right back with his big, stupid grin plastered on his face, wagging his figurative tail. He knows Kageyama will crack if he looks at him like this long enough. He always does.

"Fine," Kageyama says, breaking their stalemate--his cheeks turn pink and he glares forcefully at his desk.

"Yesss," Hinata says, throwing his arms in the air. At the front of the class, the rep looks so relieved he might faint. He adjusts his glasses again before moving onto the next order of business, which Hinata tunes out because he's already busy doodling ideas for Class 3-1's Super Awesome Haunted House Extravaganza (working title).

He's so engrossed in his feverish planning that he almost misses Kageyama muttering, "But if your receives or your grades start suffering, we're dropping out."

Hinata puffs his cheeks out like he's offended Kageyama thinks he can't handle it, but there's a little patch of warmth in his stomach that says he's pleased by his concern.

* * *

Kageyama's concern isn't unwarranted.

Every day after class, he and Kageyama stay behind in the empty classroom to work. Their project lives in the corner, scattered paint and tarps and cardboard, which absolutely drives the homeroom teacher batty--pun intended; Hinata is very proud of their little construction paper bats. Each day, they shove the desks into the corner to create a workspace, drag their creation out, and sit with way too many craft supplies spread between them as Hinata's vision takes shape.

It would be a lot easier if Hinata wasn't literally delusional half the time.

It's very impressive that Hinata has any free time left over between studying and volleyball. At first, it seemed like the only part of his day he had left to give up was his very limited social life, which merely consisted of texting Kageyama about volleyball, but he refused to give it up. So because he's a dumbass, he is now sleeping even less, and whatever tolerance he developed, whatever stockpile he accumulated during Obon, has now been depleted.

"Hinata," Kageyama says one day, his knee comfortably bumping Hinata's thigh as they sit on the classroom floor together. He's cutting out pieces of cardboard that are eventually going to make a zombie standee. Maybe.

"Yeah?" Hinata says. Or tries to say. He really just says, "Mmm?" and blinks at the string he's trying to attach to a paper mache ghost. The ghost looks awesome, or at least he thinks it does. Sometimes the whole world looks a little blurry, a little smashed together, and what he thinks is a perfectly acceptable serve ends up in the net and suddenly both Coach Ukai and Kageyama are jumping down his throat for 'not taking care of himself properly'--

" _Hinata_ ," Kageyama barks.

Hinata's head jerks up so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. "Wha?"

"You're gluing your fingers together. Give me that, stupid." Kageyama makes impatient grabby hands at the tube of extra-strength adhesive Hinata is holding.

Hinata looks down and sees that yes, indeed, the string and paper mache have both slipped to the floor, and he is arduously attempting to attach nothing to more nothing. His thumb and forefinger are covered in glue and stick together when he touches them. Whoops.

"You're a lost cause," Kageyama mutters. He takes Hinata's hand and carefully sets the tube on the ground, then gently starts wiping Hinata's hands down with one of the rags they used earlier to clean up a spill. Bits of thread stick to the places the glue is already drying, and Kageyama sighs, picking at the fibers with his fingernails.

His hands are warm, and Hinata allows him to help, letting his eyes slip shut.

"Did you sleep last night?" Kageyama asks after Hinata's hands are clean.

"I dunno." He pries his eyes open, sticky like he'd been accidentally smearing glue on his face, not on his hands. "What day is it?"

Kageyama gives him this I-can't-believe-you're-this-stupid look and says, "It's Tuesday."

Hinata keeps staring at him.

"The 11th," Kageyama clarifies.

"Mm," he says. He tumbles sideways and curls up in a ball, right on top of their grand sign that says, CLASS 3-1 HAUNTED HOUSE EXTRAVAGANZA. Title no longer pending, as they have committed it to permanency in sloppy, amateur calligraphy. "Right. Only somethin' more days 'til Halloween."

"Twenty. It's the same day every year." Kageyama eyes him critically, the way he eyes a volleyball before deciding where to send it. "Take a nap."

"But--"

"I said take a nap. I'm Captain, so you have to do what I say," he says decisively. A moment later, he shucks off his jacket and throws it at Hinata's head.

"You only won the race to decide Captain because you cheated," Hinata whines, pulling Kageyama's jacket off his face. He wants to keep complaining, but even more than that, he wants to give in and sleep. Kageyama's jacket is soft from constant wear, and it smells good, like soap and clean sweat. He bunches it under his head and falls asleep almost immediately.

When he wakes up, the sun has just recently set, some murky purple-orange tendrils still grappling on the horizon. He sits up and stretches, feeling almost human, and watches out the line of windows as the world goes dark. Inside, the fluorescent lights buzz overhead, and Hinata eventually finds enough mental wherewithal to unwind Kageyama's jacket from its tight ball, intending to lob it to him across the room.

Except Kageyama isn't where he's supposed to be. He's gone. And in his place are a pile of complete props, stacked neatly against the wall, way more neatly than Kageyama ever puts away volleyball equipment--the cardboard zombie silhouette, a blood-splattered tarp that says 'welcome to a night to dismember', and a plastic jack-o-lantern with a bad wig they've been trying to make jump out of a trash can.

"Wow," he says to himself, scuttling closer. He holds Kageyama's jacket around his shoulders because it smells nice, kind of calms him down, and because the temperature has dropped a little without the sun steadily streaming in.

"Don't touch it, stupid."

Hinata jumps and whirls around to find Kageyama sitting on the teacher's desk, legs dangling and fingers flying over the keypad on his phone.

"You did all this while I was sleeping?" he asks, eyes wide.

"Obviously," Kageyama snorts. He tucks his phone away in his pocket and slides off the desk. It's then that Hinata notices that Kageyama is covered in paint, his cowlick is sticking up helplessly, and he has somehow managed to glue a googly eye to his cheek. The effect is surprisingly adorable.

He wants to make fun of him, but he smiles instead, wide and genuine, and says, "Thanks!"

Kageyama ducks his head and shakes his hair into his eyes. "It's just so you don't fall behind."

"That's right," Hinata says, humming as they make their way downstairs to their shoe lockers. "I thought you said you'd make us drop out if you thought I couldn't handle it?"

Kageyama slams his shoe locker and mutters something.

"What was that?" Hinata says.

Kageyama glares fiercely at his shoes as he puts them on. "I said, this is important to you. I can take on a little more and you can do--whatever. Sleep, maybe."

Hinata promptly forgets how to tie his laces. "You, um. Don't have to do that. For me."

"Yeah, I do, or else you won't get into Keio," Kageyama says to the ground.

Hinata doesn't know why, but those words make his cheeks burn. He's grateful his face would have turned red in the November chill anyway, as they collect their bikes and stand together awkwardly, both looking away like they have something to be embarrassed about.

Kageyama clears his throat. "So. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes!" Hinata nods rapidly. "Practice in the morning."

"And studying after school. I'll handle the props." Kageyama's mouth twitches like maybe he's going to smile, his hands tightening spasmodically on the handlebars of his bike. "Actually sleep tonight, dumbass."

"I will! After I study!"

Kageyama waves goodbye after that, and it's not until Hinata's halfway home that he realizes he's still got Kageyama's jacket draped around his shoulders. Kageyama has to be freezing biking home tonight, no sunlight and nothing to guard against the wind as he zips downhill. That fucking idiot.

It's ironic that he can't sleep at all that night, even when he finally climbs into bed, exhausted down to his bones and joints. His brain is swimming with formulas and useless trivia, but what really keeps him up is thinking of Kageyama's stupid face when he told him he'd handle the props.

Sometime before dawn, he bundles Kageyama's jacket underneath his head, and the familiar scent is like a lullaby, sending him drifting to sleep almost immediately.

It's the same the next night, and the next night, and the next. He can't sleep--not until he puts the jacket under his head. Kageyama doesn't ask for it back, and Hinata doesn't offer.

* * *

November third, Hinata and Kageyama are the ones running the haunted house while their classmates, stick-up-his-ass class rep included, get to run around the rest of the festival like assholes. Hinata would say he minds, but it's actually kind of fun putting zombie makeup on Kageyama, drawing a gash in his cheek and painting the white of his teeth showing through. Hinata himself is just going for dead--"I'm a ghost, not a zombie," he insists to Kageyama repeatedly--and is pale, almost blue, with dark circles under his eyes and ratty clothes hanging limp off his small frame.

Despite all their hard work and awesome costumes, not a lot of people show up. Hinata blames the fact that Halloween was Monday, and people are already burnt out and looking forward to the next holiday. Kageyama doesn't blame anything; he just glares at anyone who comes close.

Come to think of it, maybe it's Kageyama's death stare that's keeping people away.

Hinata is going to comment, but then he sees a pair of familiar faces in the crowd and punches Kageyama so hard he almost falls over. "Kageyama! Look!"

He points, and they watch Daichi and Suga ambling down the hall together, taller and stubbled and more muscular, but still inherently them. Suga especially has that same calm, soothing smile that he shoots their way as Daichi sees them and starts waving.

"Senpai!" Hinata hops up and down like a moron until they hug him, and he hugs back so tight and so hard he thinks he hears Suga's back pop. "Did you come to see our haunted house?"

"We came to see you," Suga says, looking at Kageyama. They don't hug, but there's this connection there, a little tilt to Kageyama's mouth and a shine in Suga's eyes that says they're both really pleased to see each other.

"And the school," Daichi adds. He's looking around the classroom, scuffing his shoe over an old mark on the tile, a little dazed. "Hasn't changed much, has it?"

"Are you kidding?" Hinata squawks. He gestures behind him at the amazing mass of cardboard, spray paint, and pure man hours that make up the haunted house. There was too much sleep sacrificed, too many googly eyes belatedly discovered in unmentionable places, and too much paint involuntarily huffed for Hinata to allow anybody to ignore it for even a second. "We have completely transformed this room. It's gonna terrify you!"

Daichi tilts his head back and looks at the front of their exhibit with a critical eye. He frames his chin with his thumb and forefinger and rumbles, "You think so?" in a tone that sounds more amused than suitably frightened.

"Definitely," Hinata says. He's already pushing them toward the black-painted cardboard entrance. "Go on, go on. Tell us what you think when you get back."

Suga smiles kindly. "Okay, Hinata-kun."

" _If_ you get back, I mean," Hinata adds with some very evil-looking finger wiggles.

"Right," Daichi says. Hinata thinks maybe he rolls his eyes, but before he can comment, they're disappearing behind the black curtain draped across the entrance.

Hinata bounces on his feet, waiting for the screams.

And waiting.

And _waiting_.

"I don't think they're doing it right," Hinata says after five painful, eternity-long minutes have passed and nobody has come running out of the door in sheer terror.

Kageyama grunts, which Hinata takes to mean, _I know, right?_

"We should check on them," he decides, tugging on Kageyama's sleeve. "Maybe they went the wrong way."

Kageyama doesn't brush his hand away, but he does say, "Just wait," and refuses to budge even an inch, no matter how hard Hinata pushes at him. He's in the middle of spouting some very choice words about puberty and unfair height advantages--even though he had that growth spurt in second year, Kageyama still towers over him, the asshole--when Daichi and Suga emerge from the exit, pulling fake spiderwebs from their hair.

"Senpai!" Hinata yells, as though there's anyone else in this room and they could possibly miss him. He makes to tackle them again, but Kageyama holds him back, gripping the back of his shirt. Hinata's used to this and charges forward anyway, dragging Kageyama behind him. "How was it? Were you scared?"

"Umm," says Suga, scratching the side of his neck. His eyes are crinkled in that way he gets when he's trying to politely say something awful. He daintily flicks one of the spiderwebs to the floor.

"It was terrible," Daichi says.

"What!"

Suga elbows Daichi. "It wasn't that bad. It was very--"

"Terrible," Daichi finishes. "Was that pumpkin wearing a Weird Al Yankovic wig? It might scare the elementary school students, but not us."

Hinata's eyes narrow. "So you're saying now that you're at university, you're too good for our haunted house?"

Suga's eyes widen. He waves his hands back and forth urgently. "No, no, we're not saying that at all. What we're saying is--"

"You're saying it's so bad you're at a loss for words?" he cuts in, face darkening, the sunlight going out in his smile.

"Hinata," Kageyama says, exasperated, and pulls on the back of his collar. "He's not saying anything, because you keep interrupting. Shut up and let him talk."

Hinata pouts a little, but keeps his mouth shut as instructed.

"Thank you," Suga says. He appears to choose his next words carefully. "Have you--gone through it yourselves? Since it was--finished?"

"No," Hinata says, with an expression that clearly says, _Why would I?_

"Maybe you should," Suga says, and Daichi is nodding as though that explains everything.

"Are you saying our haunted house is so bad you can't believe it until you see it?" Hinata says, arms crossed.

"Not exactly," says Suga.

"Yes," says Daichi.

"Challenge accepted," Hinata says. Without hesitation, he grabs Kageyama's arm and frog-marches him behind the black curtain and into the makeshift house.

And immediately regrets his decision.

"I don't know what they're talking about," he says, sticking to Kageyama's side like one of the many googly eyes they found affixed to their faces during the span of the project. The fact that he recognizes their projects as they pass by them doesn't help at all. He knows that jack-o-lantern is going to jump out of that trash can, he knows it, he _knows it_ \--and it still makes him jump sideways in surprise.

Right into something faint and feathery, cold ethereal tendrils drifting across the back of his neck.

"It's a ghost!" Hinata screams, launching himself at Kageyama for protection. He squeezes his eyes shut and digs his fingers into Kageyama's strong biceps and waits for his untimely demise.

"It's paper mache," Kageyama deadpans. His palm rests on the small of Hinata's back for a moment, light and warm, then flits away. "We made it last month. Remember?"

"Eh?" Hinata cracks open one eye in disbelief. A white blob sways back and forth. Upon closer inspection, he sees the dopey face he drew on in permanent marker on one of the rare days he was actually allowed to help, its string dangling somewhat obviously from the ceiling.

Holy shit, he's an idiot. He's torn between embarrassment and laughter. He looks up to declare his ridiculous idiocy to Kageyama and ends up nose-to-nose with him. When they both blink in surprise, Hinata can actually feel Kageyama's eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, and Kageyama's warm breath hits his face.

"Kageyama?" he says.

"Uh," Kageyama says, looking just as bewildered as Hinata feels.

Strangely, neither of them moves away. Hinata would say he doesn't feel like he can move at all, except for how his lips are slowly gravitating toward Kageyama's--or is that Kageyama's mouth coming closer to his?

The question leaves his mind as soon as they make contact, because then all he's thinking about is how warm and soft this feels, how hot Kageyama's hands are when they frame his face, how his chest aches pleasantly and his toes curl up in his shoes. He's thinking of maybe reaching up and tugging Kageyama's collar, or holding his shoulders, or pulling on that stupid forelock Kageyama always fiddles with when he's really, really embarrassed. But he doesn't get to do any of these things, because someone screams down the hallway and they both realize at the same time that they are at school, standing openly in the hallway kissing in a shitty haunted house, and they are inevitably going to get caught.

He leaps away from Kageyama as quickly as he initially attached himself, red-faced and furiously scratching the back of his head.

"My bad," he says, a little too loud, like he wants someone to come find them and prevent that from ever, ever happening again. And at the same time, his mouth feels forever changed, and he can't help wondering what it would feel like to kiss him again. Like, immediately. Like, maybe forever.

"Uhh," Kageyama says, stuttering, stumbling over his words. He spouts some gibberish in between rubbing his mouth and staring at the wall like it at some point grievously wronged his ancestors. "It's okay. Don't--don't worry about it."

Hinata doesn't know why, but that feels wrong.

"We should probably go back," he manages, not wanting to examine that little feeling of 'wrong' too closely. Or that feeling where he wants to touch Kageyama's mouth again. Or anything, really.

"Yeah," says Kageyama in a voice that's entirely too relieved for Hinata's liking. Does that mean he hated it? Is he mad? Did he just ruin their entire friendship, their rivalry, their team?

Does he even want Hinata to go to Keio with him, now?

Hinata makes it a point to stand as far away from Kageyama as possible as they hustle through the rest of their display, stiff and uncertain. He keeps thinking maybe he should say something, maybe he should try to patch things up, but he breaks into a cold sweat every time he really imagines it.

_So, remember that time we sort of accidentally kissed in a haunted house? Like five seconds ago? Yeah, what was all that about?_

Its entirely possible he's just afraid to ask questions he doesn't know the answers to.

"Woah," Daichi says when they emerge from behind the black curtain, both wide-eyed and pale. "I stand corrected. I guess it really is scary for some people."

"I-it is," Asahi agrees, hiding behind Daichi's back. Apparently he'd been spooked by the spiderweb Suga threw on the ground earlier and was the source of the scream that disrupted the--whatever.

"You don't count," Daichi says. "You're scared of everything."

"I am not."

It takes Hinata a few moments to pull himself out of his own personal hurricane of negative thoughts and realize that Asahi is here, and this is like four people from being a full team reunion, and they should call Noya and Tanaka immediately.

He's vaguely aware that he should be much more excited about this, and he forces himself to call a greeting to Asahi and latch onto him in the same kind of bone-crushing hug he gave Suga, but it feels hollow. When he glances at Kageyama, Kageyama jerks and frantically finds something else to look at, someone else to talk to. Anything and anyone but Hinata.

Well, fine. That's just. Fine.

"Asahi-san," he cajoles, hopping at his side with an energy he doesn't feel. "Are Noya and Tanaka free?"

"Why does everyone think I know their schedule?" Asahi says, even as he pulls out his phone and taps out a mail. His phone chimes almost immediately. "Ah, they're with Tsukishima and Yamaguchi."

Tsukishima and Yamaguchi are just down the hall, wearing butler uniforms and running some kind of stupid cafe that Hinata refuses to admit is doing way better than their haunted house. In fact, Daichi and Suga are the first willing victims they've had all day, even though Kageyama worked so fucking hard on the damn thing and Hinata thinks it looks absolutely incredible.

"They already found Tsukishima-kun and Yamaguchi-kun?" Suga says, brightening. He turns to Hinata and Kageyama with that calm, sustaining smile and tilts his head. "Could you leave the haunted house for a while, do you think? We should all walk around together--get some food or something."

"Umm." Hinata looks up at Kageyama, questioning, then remembers what happened and pointedly looks at the ceiling instead.

"Probably," Kageyama says.

"Yeah, we can get someone to cover," Hinata agrees. He's already wondering where to find the class rep and how quickly he can be guilted into taking over for them the rest of the day.

"Great!" Suga puts one arm around each of their shoulders and sweeps them out of the room en masse, Daichi and Asahi following with varying expressions of amusement (Daichi) and terror (Asahi, still trying to kick the spiderweb off his shoe).

Kageyama ends up glaring the class rep into submission, and they wash the paint off their faces and spend the rest of the day with the full Karasuno dream team back together, eating omelettes in Class 3-4's butler cafe and kidnapping/rescuing Yachi from cosplay hell.

Hinata and Kageyama orbit around each other, slipping off track, drifting farther and farther apart throughout the group, and they don't talk about the kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also betaed by [CaseyValhalla](http://caseyvalhalla.tumblr.com/).

Despite emphatically Not Talking About It, it's pretty obvious something happened and something changed. It's less that they're not talking, not jostling each other around as much as they usually do, but more that they're out of sync on the court. Hinata has missed a few of Kageyama's tosses and Kageyama hasn't even screamed at him about it yet.

"What happened between you and the King?" Tsukishima asks in his typical, blunt Tsukishima-fashion once it's dragged on for over a month.

"Don't call him that," Hinata snaps automatically, even as his cheeks heat at the memory of The Kiss That Shall Not Be Named. Despite refusing to name it, he still ends up thinking about it a lot, especially when he's lying in bed with Kageyama's jacket under his head and the smell hits him, faint but still there, and he remembers what it felt like to have a warm mouth against his own, Kageyama's muscles shifting under his shirt, pressed up against him and--

"You're blushing," Tsukishima observes, smirking.

"I am not!" (He is, god help him, he is.)

Tsukishima tosses a volleyball in the air and sighs. "Okay, whatever. You're not blushing. What happened between you and not-the-King?"

"Nothing." Kageyama would kill him if he told anyone what happened, but especially Tsukishima. It's been almost three years and he still hasn't given up that goddamn nickname. How long would he make fun of them if he found out about--the thing he's definitely still not thinking about?

"It's affecting your skills." Tsukishima throws the ball at his head. As if to prove his point, Hinata totally fumbles the receive and it hits him square in the jaw.

He squawks and rubs the rapidly developing red mark.

"And if it's affecting your skills, it's affecting the team," Tsukishima continues. "We managed to make it through qualifiers, and I'm not losing Spring High because you and Kageyama can't get your shit together."

"It's not gonna affect the team," he mutters.

Tsukishima looks like he might seriously hit him. Yamaguchi must have some built-in stop-Tsukishima-from-committing-homicide sensor, because he pops around the corner, looking rightly worried, and says, "Tsukki, aren't you done yet? Hurry up so we can go home. Mom's making curry."

"Shut up, Yamaguchi," Tsukishima says.

"Sorry, Tsukki," Yamaguchi says, disappearing back around the corner.

Tsukishima waits until he's gone, then pokes Hinata in the chest so hard _that's_ probably gonna leave a bruise, too, and snaps, "I don't care what you guys do. Figure it out."

" _Tsukkiiii_ ," Yamaguchi wheedles.

Apparently the lure of curry is enough to save Hinata's ass, because Tsukishima tosses the last volleyball into the basket with the others, and leaves, glaring as he goes.

It's probably the closest thing Hinata's ever going to get to a pep talk. And if Tsukishima, of all people, is the one giving said pep talk, then he must _really_ need to get his act together. Which probably means talking to Kageyama, and talking about the thing they're not talking about.

Crap.

* * *

Hinata has never said he isn't a coward. Because he is. He really, really is.

First, he tries passing Kageyama a note in cram school, because technically it's not talking, and there's no awkward stuttering and blushing and not looking at each other if it's just passing notes.

It's one of his normal doodles, a dumb little thing about their Maths problems coming to life and attacking them, but from the way Kageyama jerks and stares at it when Hinata drops it on his desk, you'd think it was an alien species come to eviscerate him right then and there.

Then he opens it, and that little tiny half-smile appears, and Hinata's heart clenches.

 _Not good_ , Hinata thinks, holding a hand to his chest. _Oh, shit. That is so not good_.

Kageyama doesn't write back, but he does put it in his pocket like maybe he's actually going to keep it. That stupid fucking smile is encouraging enough for Hinata to send another one, and another one, until he's confident enough to actually write something:

_we ok?_

All of Kageyama's breath leaves him in one quick sigh. He scribbles _yes_ on the back and holds it up so Hinata can read it, but he doesn't give it back. He folds it up and slides it into the pocket with all the other pieces of paper Hinata has thrown to him tonight.

Hinata kind of minds that he's not giving any of them back, because he's running out of notebook paper and he isn't made of yen, you know, but he supposes there's less ammunition for the teacher to use if she catches Hinata with one drawing as opposed to ten.

And then, of course, there's the absurdly embarrassing question he can't even believe he's going to ask, and he's a little relieved Kageyama will stow it away in his pocket before the teacher could possibly read:

_wanna hang out this sunday?_

Kageyama turns red, hands clenched, stoically staring straight ahead. Then he nods once, sharply.

Hinata thinks that's kind of a weird reaction, but mostly he's just relieved that whatever they fucked up when they Most Certainly Did Not Kiss seems to be fixing itself. He grins and gives him a double thumbs up.

Hesitantly, Kageyama gives him a thumbs up in return, although he looks somewhat confused by it--and that, Hinata thinks, is that.

Friendship fixed, disaster averted.

* * *

That Sunday, it turns out, is Christmas Eve.

He's never had a girlfriend, so he's never thought much of it beyond admiring the pretty trees downtown and the colored lights strung along all the shop windows. He's completely oblivious until he's sitting on the step of the genkan, stuffing his feet into winter boots and quadruple-wrapping a scarf around his neck. His mom shuffles up behind him with Natsu hanging to her skirts, both of them nursing steaming cups of cocoa.

"Onii-chan has a date," Natsu observes brightly--and loudly--and Hinata pulls so hard on his laces he almost lets go and accidentally punches himself in the face.

"What!? How did you--I don't have a _date_."

Mom cards through Natsu's messy hair and raises her eyebrows. "So you're just going out with a friend," she says dubiously.

"Yes."

"On Christmas Eve," she adds, taking a pointed sip of cocoa to punctuate how very much she doesn't believe him. At her side, Natsu nods along, mimicking her and taking a drink from her own mug.

Hinata's glad for the scarf covering half his face, because it hides both his expression of mortification and his full-body blush. Before this bullshit with Kageyama, he'd never blushed so much before in his life. But this blush comes with the added bonus of immediate, nearly debilitating stomach cramps.

He's fucking nervous now.

"Oh no," he mutters and hunches over. He wraps both arms around his midsection and rocks slowly back and forth.

"Don't have an anxiety attack over it." Mom gently pulls his hands away and wraps them around her cocoa. "Here, drink some of this and breathe."

"I'm gonna die," he says, remembering the weird way Kageyama had agreed to this outing, and it occurs to him Kageyama must have known the holiday and agreed anyway.

"You won't die." She detaches Natsu and folds her skirts under herself as she plops down on the step beside him. Her face has that blankly open thing going on, the look she gets when she's trying too hard to get him to confide in her. There are wrinkles forming by her eyes, little crow's feet that show how much she's loved her life.

In the part of his brain that's not panicking (it's a very small part), he thinks how appropriate it is that crows represent happiness on the human face.

When he makes no move to spill his guts to her, she crosses her legs at her ankles and wiggles her house slippers. "So, who's the girl?"

"It's Kageyama-nii," Natsu says, primly seating herself on their mother's knee. She's never done anything that formally before in her entire existence, so of course she takes this moment to draw attention to it and out him.

Sort of. It's not outing him if it's not a date. And it's not a date.

Hearing no correction (Hinata says nothing, just attempts to retreat bodily into his scarf like a turtle), Mom nods and presses her lips together, _mmm_ ing softly. She takes the hot cocoa from Hinata, takes another drink, and passes it back. The world, strangely, does not end.

Cautiously, Hinata pulls down his scarf far enough to try some of the cocoa, finding it hot but not scalding, sweet and perfect.

"So," Mom says casually, as though they're discussing the weather. "Where are you and Kageyama-kun going on your date?"

"It's not a date," he insists. "I didn't know when it was Christmas when I asked to hang out."

"It's a date," Natsu says, because she's hellspawn. She giggles and hides behind Mom's back when he reaches out to smack her, spilling cocoa and precious marshmallows on the step.

"Natsu-chan, go clean that up. Shouyou, don't bully your sister."

"Hey, I'm the one being bullied here!"

"Onii-chan has a date with Kageyama-nii," Natsu sing-songs as she carefully sets her mug down, then bolts to the kitchen before she can get whalloped.

"It's not--"

"I know," Mom interrupts before he can make any more denials. She frowns at the door and taps her slippers together a few times, then nods to herself, sweeping to her feet. "Stay here a moment," she says, then trails after Natsu, careful to avoid the spilled chocolate.

Hinata is still recovering from the petrifying embarrassment of being kinda-sorta outed by his baby sister, so he's content to stay on the step and fight down the weird fluttering sensation in his gut.

When Mom returns (Natsu zooms past her with a towel and enthusiastically scrubs at the spill), she's counting out yen notes from her wallet. She gets to about five thousand before she looks satisfied and tucks it between Hinata's limp, wary fingers. It's more money than she's ever given him for a day out with a friend, and he holds it up and stares at it, the meaning behind the extra funds weighing heavily on his mind.

"Before you freak out, it's just for a present," Mom says. Smiling, she plucks the mug from his hands, sidesteps a rambunctious Natsu (running on her way back to toss the towel in the laundry), and leans against the door frame. "Friends still exchange gifts, right?"

"Right," he says. It takes his uncooperative fingers a few tries before he successfully puts the money in his wallet. He wants to point out that friends who are _just_ friends don't normally give each other gifts when they're on a Christmas date, but there's no point, because this is not a date.

* * *

It is, in fact, a date.

This fact is made abundantly and immediately clear by Kageyama's outfit and the way he'll look literally anywhere but Hinata's face. They meet at the train station between their houses, and Kageyama's warm enough from being squished inside a train car like a human sardine that he has unzipped his coat. Underneath the puffy, fur-lined layers, Kageyama actually looks _nice_. Not that he doesn't usually look nice--uh, not that Hinata particularly notices--god dammit, he just looks good, okay? He's wearing a wristband, which means he went to the trouble of picking out an actual accessory, and his cardigan is thin and powder blue and hangs off his shoulders just right.

He looks so good that Hinata is actually feeling pretty self-conscious about his hoodie and jeans right about now. He'll just avoid unzipping his coat the entire day. That's absolutely rational.

"So," Kageyama blurts after they've done the stare-at-each-other-but-not-say-a-word thing for about five gruelling minutes straight. "What do you want to do?"

Hinata fingers the money from his mom and says, "Want to get ice cream? It--uh, my treat."

"It's too cold for ice cream, stupid."

Hinata blinks, and for some reason, his shoulders relax and he breathes out all the anxiety he's been bundling in his chest. Because it's still Kageyama. It's still them. It doesn't matter if this is a date, or whether they kissed or didn't kiss (although they definitely did, and the phantom sensation of Kageyama's lips on his has been giving Hinata some problems at night), because it hasn't actually changed anything.

So he taps his chin and looks past the turnstiles, where couples are walking hand-in-hand down the light-lined street, taking photos in front of elaborate store displays and decorated trees.

"Window-shopping?" he suggests.

Kageyama shifts, tugging his furry hood up over his head. "I guess. Is there something you need to buy?"

"No," Hinata says, because 'a Christmas present for you' is probably not a suitable answer in this situation. He starts walking just because they're starting to create a bottleneck, and he _hates_ people who do that. And then he just kinda grabs Kageyama's arm to make sure he comes along--not because it's particularly date-y.

Kageyama stiffens anyway, the bastard, staring at Hinata's hand with an incredulous expression right before he turns red.

Hinata clamps down harder, because he's stubborn, and drags him outside.

It's cold, and Kageyama zips up his jacket, which is kind of a tragedy considering how nice he looks, but it definitely helps Hinata focus on the task at hand. He remembers the girls in his class chatting at lunch about these light shows on Christmas, where downtown Tokyo glitters like the Disney intro on crack, and he babbles, "Lights!"

Kageyama gives him a constipated look and echoes, "Lights?"

"You know, the light show, where everything is like _pwahh!_ and _shahhhh!_ and it's really pretty."

"I've heard of it," Kageyama says. He looks thoughtful now, linking his arm through Hinata's like they're not walking down a busy public street. It's so natural Hinata almost thinks he doesn't know he's doing it, except for how he's glaring super intensely at the ground. "That's not until tonight, though. What do you want to do until then?"

"I came up with the lights thing," Hinata pokes him in the arm, "so you've gotta come up with the other thing."

"Fine." He huffs out a long sigh that turns white in the winter air. Then he turns, grinning slightly, and says, "Ice skating."

"Ice skating, huh," Hinata says, rolling the idea around in his head. It's kind of a sport--it's in the Olympics, after all--and weather-appropriate. He finds himself grinning back and says, "Okay!"

 * * *

The problem with ice skating is that Hinata apparently can't ice skate. He's not actually aware of this until they're at the outdoor skating rink, strapped down with proper skates, and Hinata is windmilling fiercely on the ice.

"Kageyamaaaa," he says, forgetting all the weirdness between them amidst the adrenaline rush of not understanding how to operate his feet properly.

"Why'd you agree to go skating if you don't know how?"

"I didn't _know_ I didn't know how," he whines.

"Dumbass." Kageyama is a natural at anything physical (no, don't think about that too hard, Hinata, that's _so_ not appropriate) so of course he's already circling him in easy, graceful strides.

"Help," he says, sticking his arms out. He may or may not be pouting.

"You're an athlete. You figure it out."

Figure it out, indeed.

Hinata takes that as an open invitation to latch onto his hood the next time he circles too close. Kageyama yells something obscene and threatening, and Hinata just holds on tighter, laughing and yelling back, "Mush!"

"I'm not your dog," Kageyama mutters, but he inexplicably stops trying to shake him off.

Kageyama pulls Hinata behind him all the way around the rink, the cold numbing their cheeks, the steady _shh shh shh_ of Kageyama's skates along the ice lining up with Hinata's heartbeat. He smiles and wraps his arms around Kageyama's waist and just lets himself be pulled. The back of his coat smells exactly like the jacket he still keeps tucked under his pillow, and it's so familiar and _nice_ that he finds himself closing his eyes.

As a side note, you should probably never close your eyes while ice skating. Especially when being pulled by someone like Kageyama, who has a tendency to set his sights a little too high, and who really likes to show off. Because the next thing Hinata knows, Kageyama is tensing, and at first Hinata thinks, _Oh shit, what'd I do now_ , and then he's falling, and Kageyama's twisting around so he can catch him, break his fall.

"Ummm," Hinata says, eyes wide, on his hands and knees between Kageyama's legs.

"That was your fault," Kageyama says with no real heat. His pupils are large and black, trained on Hinata's face, only inches from his own. It reminds Hinata of fake spider webs and paper mache ghosts.

"Was not," he whispers. He's aware of every place they're touching--his palm bumping Kageyama's thigh, Kageyama's leg on top of his calf. And he's even more aware that he's inching closer. Both of them are. But neither of them are saying anything.

"You suck at this," Kageyama finally grunts once their noses are close enough to touch.

"No, you suck at this," Hinata snaps back, although he isn't doing much to encourage or discourage their current arrangement.

Because Kageyama has the mentality of a third-grader, he says, "You suck more," and kisses him.

On the ice.

In public.

It's not a good decision. Logically, Hinata knows this. He should not be gripping Kageyama's collar and pulling him closer, nor should he be biting Kageyama's bottom lip and grinning at the little noise he elicits. What he should be doing is climbing to his feet to either resume the skating-not-skating or take this somewhere less scandalous.

They do neither, it turns out, because a second later some hapless bystander (by-skater?) trips on their pile of unresolved sexual tension and the moment is crushed. Literally. By one hundred pounds of girl and sharp skates.

Seriously, who had the brilliant idea to strap fucking daggers to shoes and try to walk on ice? That shit is dangerous. Hinata narrowly avoids taking a blow to the head, and Kageyama gets kneed viciously in the face, complete with an immediate and impressive nosebleed.

"I'm sorry!" The girl bows her head, either completely mortified or seriously pissed off. Or both.

"No, I'm sorry!" Hinata ducks down, too.

Kageyama mumbles something around the blood in his mouth that might pass for an apology, and Hinata pushes his head down, too, before he remembers that's the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do for a bloody nose.

"Um, you should probably take care of that," the girl says, gesturing vaguely at the utter mess that used to be Kageyama's face.

"Yes," Hinata says stupidly. He attempts to climb to his feet, but his skills at ice skating have not magically improved in the last minute, and falls flat on his face. It's so cold the snot freezes in his nose, and he covers his face with both his frozen hands, whining.

Through the blood, Kageyama laughs at him, and Hinata finds himself laughing back. They're such a fucking trainwreck.

Once they've caused a commotion big enough that they can't possibly be overlooked, an employee escorts them off the ice and administers first aid in a small tent with a space heater. Kageyama is instructed to tilt his head back, and once the blood is cleaned off, Hinata can see his nose is already starting to bruise.

"Sorry about your face."

"It's fine." Kageyama shrugs and touches just below his nose, checking for blood, and looks satisfied that the bleeding has stopped, at least. "Do you still want to see the lights?"

"Yes." Subtly--or as subtly as Hinata capable, which honestly isn't very much--he checks to see if the first aid guy is looking and slips his hand into Kageyama's.

It's warm, so much warmer than his, and soft and callused in all the right places. Hinata curls his fingers and lets that warmth seep into him, coiling in his belly and making him feel glowy all over.

"Your hand is cold," Kageyama mutters.

Hinata wiggles his fingers and mutters back, "Deal with it."

Kageyama grunts something, and then he's cupping both Hinata's hands with his, and he raises them to his mouth to gently blow hot air across his knuckles.

Even though he's the one who started it, Hinata stutters some mangled complaint about the contact, so embarrassed he thinks his head very well may burst into flames at any moment.

"Quit it, someone will see," he hisses.

That makes Kageyama pause. He tilts his head, purses his lips, and looks at Hinata through his bangs and says, "So?"

"S-so," he sputters, "that's bad."

"Is it?" Kageyama's lips graze his fingertips for just a moment before he drops Hinata's hands, and Hinata almost faints.

"You bastard, stop acting like you're cool." It's not fair, the way his heart is pounding and his palms are sweaty now. His hands definitely aren't cold anymore, he'll give him that much.

Kageyama smirks a little. "Fine. Do you still want to see the lights?"

"Yes, duh, of course I do." It's the epitome of a Christmas date, almost as important as-- "Wait! First we should go eat cake!"

For some reason this makes Kageyama duck his head, his face contorting into that constipated expression Hinata is beginning to recognize as embarrassment.

 _Cute_ , he thinks, almost surprised at his brain's capacity to attribute such words to Kageyama, of all people. Cute is probably the last word people would use to describe him, with his savage expressions and almost freakish intensity. But in this moment, blushy and timid, it's what he is.

"Okay, let's get cake," Kageyama mumbles. "My nose is fine now, anyway."

"Yesss!"

Their hands slide together as they leave the tent, and Hinata thinks with a sense of detached wonder that he is so, so fucked.

 * * *

When he returns home that night, his mom is on the couch with a sleepy Natsu curled up against her side, watching reruns of old dramas. She looks up at him with a smile, probably ready to ask him a million invasive questions about his date, then gasps when she sees the bruise on his face.

"What happened?" she whispers, shifting Natsu when she snuffles in her sleep. "Did you and Kageyama-kun have a fight?"

"What? No." He touches his nose, and his mouth, and feels a little dizzy, remembering all the day's events. His lips buzz when he thinks about the way they kissed on the ice.

Mom squints at him. "Are you sure?"

"I'm pretty sure."

"That's good." Her smile grows softer, more affectionate, and she tilts her head. "So did Kageyama-kun like his present?"

"Er."

Shit. A present. He completely forgot about a present.

And his mom knows him so well, because she reads his expression as easily as she reads the morning news, letting out a long sigh. "You didn't give him one, did you."

"No," he admits. The money feels heavy in his pocket. "Not on purpose!"

"Of course not--and shh, Natsu is sleeping." She gently runs her fingers through Natsu's hair, and Natsu burrows against her thigh like a kitten. "What about Valentine's Day?"

"No way." Hinata's face contorts at the thought of giving Kageyama a box of homemade chocolates covered in pink hearts.

"Mmm. Birthday?" she suggests.

"Already happened," he says. They still weren't talking at that point, and he hid behind the team as they took him out for pork buns.

"Graduation," she says, the word fading into a yawn, and Hinata answers with a yawn of his own, suddenly tired.

"Graduation is a good idea." He flicks Natsu on the forehead (gently, so she doesn't wake up) and kisses his mom on the cheek. "Thanks. I'll look for something next weekend."

"Night, sweetie." She ruffles the hair on his forehead, then shifts her attention back to the television.

(Hinata finds a tie clip in the shape of a crown, which is like doubly perfect, because it's something he can wear with his tie on actual graduation day, and any time he feels like being fancy after that.)

* * *

It comes as no surprise that they don't talk about it, given their past experience Talking About Things. There's no formal confession or declaration, no Facebook relationship status change. Hinata holds it quietly, secretly in his chest and covets it.

He likes Kageyama, as in _like_ likes, and Kageyama likes him back.

It must show in their teamwork, their quick strikes and their strategies. Day one of practice after Christmas, Coach Ukai grins at them, his unlit cigarette clenched between his teeth, and says, "Thank god! We've got Spring High next month and I was startin' to think we'd have to do it without you."

Hinata takes this as a personal affront--how could Coach Ukai even consider not taking them to Spring High? After all their hard work!--and squawks about it in a way that's very unbecoming of a vice captain. At his side, Kageyama snorts and tosses his hair out of his eyes and says, "You couldn't have," in the arrogant, matter-of-fact tone that Hinata can't believe he initially hated about him.

"Don't underestimate your teammates," Coach Ukai takes his cigarette out of his mouth and rolls it between his fingers, squinting at them. For one terrible moment, Hinata thinks something shows on his face that gives them away--but then Coach Ukai just laughs and smacks both of them on the back and says, "Enough of that shit, let's talk strategy for January."

* * *

Their strategy is simple: win.

Okay, that's a lie. There's a lot more to it than that. Tsukishima is the cornerstone of their defense, and Hinata and Kageyama still represent the majority of their offense. But Yamaguchi's mastered his float serve, and they have some truly impressive first and second years on the team, club members that Hinata and Kageyama have spent years moulding into the best team they can possibly be.

Even though Hinata is intensely aware of the way Kageyama smells, the way his hair falls on his forehead and sticks up after practice, the rough timbre of his voice when he's tired and yells too much--despite all this, the constant desire to kiss him must absolutely stay on the back burner while they prepare for Spring High.

Spring High means practice games, and lots of them. Training camp. Early practices. _Extra_ practices. Hours sitting on the floor in Hinata's room with a pad and pencil, drafting attack formations and hand signals for the underclassmen who don't have the same weird level of telepathy that he and Kageyama have. They run alone together sometimes, side-by-side--not talking, just puffing out white clouds of hot air on cold winter mornings, pushing each other to run faster to even their score.

It means hardly any alone time that isn't encompassed entirely by volleyball. No cake. No dates. No timidly holding hands. It also means they don't tell anybody about the change in their relationship, because what's the point in stirring shit up when the entire team needs to focus 120% of their attention on the tournament?

Hinata wouldn't say they hide it, exactly. More like there's nothing to hide. Things are normal, _so_ normal, so pre-The Kiss that Hinata almost forgets it happened. But he can't forget, and it gets to a point where he almost wishes Spring High would end so they could get back to the kissing part already.

Then he remembers winning nationals together is all they've ever dreamed of, and he's being a selfish fuck and needs to get over himself.

* * *

They sit side-by-side on the bus Takeda-sensei rents to take them to the preliminaries, and Hinata figures this is his chance for some quick alone time.

It's a long drive; most of the team falls asleep at some point, Hinata and Kageyama not excluded. Kageyama rests his cheek on top of Hinata's head and Hinata drools all over Kageyama's shoulder.

Sometimes, in between shifting to get comfortable and the erratic way Hinata twists and turns while he plays his DS, their arms touch. Once in a while, their hands even touch. Hinata stares at their pinkies against each other, purposely brushing his down Kageyama's and smiling like an idiot. It's nice, but kinda dangerous, because this is literally the worst time to accidentally announce to the entire team that there's something more than friendly rivalry going on between the team captains. ("Captain and _vice_ captain," Kageyama would correct sourly if he could hear Hinata's thoughts.)

Hinata pops out of his seat like a meerkat, peering over the back of the seat to take stock of what the rest of the bus is doing. Everyone is asleep, it appears, either passed out on equipment bags or each other, or too far away for Hinata to see what they're doing and therefore not a threat. Satisfied, Hinata nods vigorously to himself, slaps his cheeks a few times to psych himself up, and then flops against Kageyama's side and intertwines their fingers like it's a shoujo manga.

Kageyama jolts a little. He wasn't expecting that, apparently, and he stares at him with wide eyes.

This makes Hinata think maybe he's done a very bad thing, and he tries to pull away, but Kageyama squeezes his fingers and doesn't let him.

He thinks back to what Kageyama said in the first aid tent, when Hinata had protested, saying that someone would see them.

_So what?_

"Did you mean it?" he whispers.

"Why are you whispering?" Kageyama whispers back.

"So nobody can hear us."

"They're all asleep, stupid."

"I'm not," Tsukishima announces from three rows back. His eyes are closed and his headphones are on--but not _on_ , apparently, since he's having no trouble eavesdropping on their conversation. "So if you could please stop flirting so loudly, some of us are trying to sleep."

"We're not flirting!" Kageyama denies hotly, popping up in his seat to glare at Tsukishima properly.

"We kinda are," Hinata whispers.

Tsukishima is unmoved by Kageyama's false declaration. "I can _hear you_."

"So put your stupid music on!" Kageyama points accusingly at his iPod. "Or go to sleep like everybody else!"

"Pretty sure _none_ of us are asleep now," Tsukishima says with a smirk. As though to prove his point, Yamaguchi rustles at his side, turning and punching the duffel bag he's using as a makeshift pillow.

"You're the worst," Hinata says, dramatically flinging himself against the window, far away from Kageyama and the temptation to hold hands and ask him if he really, really meant if it was okay for other people to know.

It's a question he still intends to ask, but now is not the time, apparently. Their focus needs to be on the game, the heft of the volleyballs in their hands, on winning--and then after that it _immediately_ needs to switch to studying if they're gonna go to Keio together.

He doesn't know what sadistic fuck came up with this system, where entrance exams and spring tournaments are in the same month, but he would like to spike a volleyball into that person's face. Until the more stressful parts of their lives are under control, he assumes his dumb relationship questions can wait.

He assumes wrong.

* * *

In February, when Hinata sneaks into the gym for some therapeutic, post-exam wall-spiking (because he _needs_ it--the Keio exam was so hard it made his head hurt. His mom forced him to take the Waseda one as a 'backup', which was considerably less hard, but still made him leave the room feeling like he was in a daze), he's only expecting the quiet echoey-ness of the empty court and the comforting smell of stale sweat and salonpas pain-relieving spray. What he's not expecting is to find Kageyama and Yachi standing underneath the bleachers, heads bowed close, Kageyama holding a letter that Yachi has presumably just given him. She looks nervous--more so than normal, even, twisting her hands and biting her lip, probably sweating her tits off underneath Kageyama's intense stare. Like a girl who has just confessed to the guy she likes and is waiting for a reply.

 _Poor Yachi_ , he thinks sympathetically--and, if he's being totally honest, with a twinge of jealousy.

"I've never said it before, but even though you really annoy me, I still think I like you. Probably," Kageyama says to the floor, and Hinata abruptly stops breathing. He ducks into the doorway, careful not to let his sneakers squeak, and presses himself against the wall and wills himself, desperately, to blend in with it, to disappear.

"I-I think maybe you shouldn't say I really annoy you," Yachi mumbles, scratching the side of her face as though she desperately needs something to do with her hands. A bead of sweat rolls down her temple. "A-and don't end everything with probably. It sounds like you're not s-serious."

"Sorry!" Kageyama stands up straight and clutches the letter so hard the envelope creases. "I'll try again. Let me start over."

"O-okay." Yachi takes a deep breath and folds her hands in front of her skirt. She looks both expectant and terrified.

"Uh, okay. So." He swallows with some difficulty, squeezes his eyes shut, and blurts, "I'm sorry I didn't say it before, but I really like you too, so let's go out officially."

And that's about as much as Hinata can take.

He shuts the gym door as quietly as possible and then runs, runs and runs and runs all the way up three flights of stairs to the roof, where the February air stings his lungs and his eyes. He sucks in as much of it as he can, waits for his heart to stop throbbing, but it doesn't.

He's in shock, he thinks. Everything is numb.

There's probably a rational explanation. Right? It's not like he--it's not like _they_ stopped doing romantic things for almost two months and Kageyama moved on. Kageyama wouldn't do that to him. At the very least, he would wait until they were done with volleyball to avoid endangering their team dynamic--

Oh. But volleyball _is_ over.

"I'll ask him about it," he says to himself, roughly scrubbing his eyes dry with his hoodie sleeve. They're red and painful. "I'll just say hey, Kageyama, how are we doing? Are we still dating? And he'll probably say yes and it will be fine. And I just won't bring up that thing with Yachi. And everything will be fine."

So of course, when he's sitting at his desk and Kageyama walks into the classroom, he does the exact fucking opposite.

"So, that thing with Yachi," Hinata starts, hoping the jealousy and weird churning sensation in his gut don't reach his voice.

Kageyama freezes halfway into his seat, eyes wide, a blush crawling up his neck all the way to his ears. He just hangs there, one hand on the back of his chair, mouth open, and makes a gurgling noise.

Hinata reminds himself that Yachi is actually a very nice girl and a good manager and he does not, in fact, want to throw her in a dumpster behind the school.

Eventually Kageyama stops gurgling and says, "You saw that?"

"Yeah."

Kageyama sinks into his seat and licks his suddenly dry lips. "What did you think of it?"

What did he think of it? What a fucking painful question. The truth is, he doesn't know what he thinks of it, because he doesn't _want_ to think about it. If he does think of it, he thinks it's the most painful thing he's ever experienced in his life.

That's a lot of thinks.

"Were you serious?" he asks.

"Pretty serious," Kageyama says cautiously. He's having trouble looking Hinata in the eye again.

"Great," Hinata snaps, flinging open his notebook with a ferocity he has never applied to school work before. "That's great. And when were you gonna tell me?"

"I don't know, stupid. Probably now."

Hinata snorts. Or sobs. He doesn't know.

"Are you--" Kageyama squints like he's surprised that this is upsetting for him. "Are you _mad_?"

"Of course I'm fucking mad." His eyes sting. He scrubs at them, makes them redder. His world is fucking crumbling and Kageyama is shocked that Hinata seems to mind. "How did you expect me to feel?"

"I don't know," Kageyama spreads his hands helplessly, " _happy_?"

Happy. Should he be happy for him? After all, this is usually par for the course for guys who like other guys. Get a girl, get married, have a son. This is just Kageyama preparing for life after high school. It's okay to fool around with a boy at Christmas as long as you become a proper member of society afterwards. God, and--Kageyama never even said he liked him, Hinata just _assumed_.

So he says, "Would you have been happy if it had been me saying those things to Yachi?"

 _Say no_ , he thinks. _Say you'd be jealous. Realize you're being a fucking asshole and apologize and maybe I'll forgive you_.

But Kageyama squints harder and replies, "Yes? Is this a trick question?"

"Unbelievable." Embarrassingly, he starts to cry. Straight up his head on his desk and cries. At least Spring High is over and his tests are taken. There's nothing to stop him from being a sad fucking lump for the next month until graduation.

The teacher walks in and the class falls silent, although half of them are still eyeing Hinata curiously. Kageyama lets him embarrass himself a while longer, then flicks a note at his desk.

Hinata kind of doesn't want to open it, but he's apparently a masochist, because he reads it anyway.

It says, "I'm sorry??"

Hinata doesn't think about how this is the first time Kageyama has ever initiated note-passing. He thinks, _This isn't enough_ , and crumples the note and hurls it at the side of Kageyama's head. "You fucking idiot!"

Class grinds to a halt. The teacher drops her piece of chalk and stares. It's the same expression Kageyama is wearing, until that face falls victim to a familiar anger, taut and defensive and _arrogant_.

"What's your problem?" Kageyama asks.

"You are!" He stands so fast his chair falls back, smacks the knuckles of the girl behind him. He's so pissed off he can't scrape together the courtesy to even apologize.

"Hinata-kun, Kageyama-kun," the teacher cuts in crisply in the steely tone she reserves for serious student infractions. "I'm going to have to ask you to--"

"I'm leaving already, anyway," Hinata interrupts before she can tell him to stand in the hall. He shoves his notes together, slings his bag over his shoulder, and stomps out so hard and so fast he nearly flings off his shitty school shoes on accident.

He slides the door shut as dramatically as possible, then stands outside it and deflates, because without Kageyama there to yell at, he's just _empty_. The corridor is long and white and empty, too, and Hinata drags himself down it with no real motivation, wiping his runny nose on his sleeve and staring out the row of windows. It's gray, overcast, and cold outside, so he decides he'll walk the whole way home because he feels like wallowing.

Then the door opens and slams shut again, and Kageyama's on him in an instant, clamping a hand around his elbow like a vice.

"Oi, _Hinata_ ," Kageyama says when Hinata squirms and thrashes, and pins him to the wall of windows. "What the fuck?"

"Leave me alone, jackass!"

"You're the jackass. Tell me what I did."

"YACHI. Isn't it obvious?"

Kageyama purses his lips and squeezes Hinata's wrists. "Is that it? Are you mad because I told her about us?"

He must have missed that part, and he's glad of it, actually. He wouldn't want to see the pity in Yachi's eyes when Kageyama told her he's choosing her over Hinata. Learning she knows about them stirs less of a reaction of anger, and more of a deep-seated embarrassment and betrayal.

So he makes a noncommittal noise and shuts his eyes so he doesn't have to look at how _blue_ Kageyama's are anymore and wishes, melodramatically, that he were dead.

"I'm sorry," Kageyama mumbles. He slumps against him, releasing his wrists. "She won't tell anyone. Probably."

"I just--" Hinata grips Kageyama's collar a bit desperately and hates the way his voice cracks. This is why his life was never supposed to be anything more than volleyball. It never will be again now. "How could you?"

"I didn't think I needed your permission, after what we said."

 _After what we said_.

He wracks his brain up, down and sideways, but he can't think of a single instance where he told Kageyama he didn't care if he dated other people. Then again, he can't remember saying he wanted to be exclusive, either, or even straight up saying he liked him and wanted things to continue.

So he waited too long. That must be it. He waited too long and now he can either flail pathetically, fling himself on Kageyama as a last ditch attempt, or be happy for them the way Kageyama seems to want.

He is nothing if not a little selfish.

"So, I mean, what you said to her earlier. There's no way you'd reconsider?"

"No," is the immediate answer, strong and full of conviction. Kageyama stares straight into Hinata's eyes like this holds some deeper meaning.

"Get off me," Hinata says.

Kageyama's eyes widen.

"Get off, let go," he says, louder, and pushes at Kageyama's chest until he _does_ , stumbling backwards with a look of confusion.

"Hinata," Kageyama starts, but Hinata isn't listening, he's straightening the strap of his bag and walking down the hall.

"Leave me _alone_ ," he says.

He hopes Yachi makes an excellent fucking wife.

* * *

The icing on the fucking cake is that when he gets home, his mom is sitting under the kotatsu, and she doesn't look happy.

His first thought is that the school called her, and maybe he's suspended like Noya-senpai was that first year for knocking over the vice principal. But then he looks closer, and he realizes she doesn't look disappointed, necessarily, just. _Sad_.

"Shouyou," she says, surprised, and looks at the clock. "You're home early. Is everything okay?"

"No," he says, hurling his bag at the ground. He kicks off his shoes violently, then re-thinks it and fixes them so they're in a neat line next to his mom's sandals.

"So you heard, then?" She looks down at her hands, and that's when Hinata realizes her laptop's on the table in front of her.

"Um." Heart thumping, he drops down next to her and tucks his legs under the warmth of the blanket. His toes tingle from the long, frigid walk home, and they finally start to thaw. But his heart is still a block of solid ice as he stares apprehensively at her screen.

"Maybe it's better if you read it yourself. I'm sorry, sweetie." Mom wipes her face and swivels the laptop towards him.

There are two tabs open. The roster of accepted student IDs for both Keio and Waseda. When Hinata took the exams, each school issued him a temporary ID number and instructions to check the website later for admission results.

He already knows what this means, but for the sake of--he doesn't know, closure, maybe--he scans the list for his ID number twice and doesn't find it.

It's just as well, he thinks, since his biggest reason for attending Keio just ruined his life.

"Shouyou," his mom says, and he ignores her, tabbing over to Waseda's roster. If she looks this devastated, he probably didn't get into either of them, and now he's going to be stuck on the Neighborhood Volleyball Association with Coach Ukai and the other old geezers, working at the Izakaya or _worse_ , and his life is _over_ if he can't have volleyball _or_ Kageyama--

His number is there.

"Mom," he says, astonished.

"I know it's not what you wanted," she says gently, her hand on his shoulder, "but it's still a good opportunity, don't you think?"

"Y-yeah."

It lessens the sting, knowing his life isn't completely not worth living, and he tries to frame things positively. Kenma's at Waseda, and so is Kuroo. Their volleyball team is probably solid if Kuroo bothered joining, would be better if Kenma was on it, too, but Kenma refuses to play--he's there to study video games.

"Are you okay?" his mom asks.

 _No_ , he thinks. He's not okay. But it's not as bad as it could be. He still has volleyball.

"Do I have to go to school tomorrow?" he asks.

"No," she says.

And she doesn't make him go the whole rest of that week. Kageyama knocks on his door every day, but Hinata specifically says he _doesn't_ want to see him, so his mom graciously accepts the homework Kageyama has neatly tucked into plastic folders each day and apologizes that 'Shouyou isn't feeling up to visitors today, again, I'm sorry.'

When he returns to school on Monday, he can look at the back of Kageyama's head without bursting into tears, and that's an improvement. Kageyama sends him wounded looks when he thinks Hinata's not looking, as though this whole situation is somehow _his_ fault. And Tsukishima is devoid of insults for once, seeming to understand that the fissure between them is empty, hollow, and cannot be filled with quips and banter.

Time seems to pass more slowly than ever before, the need to get outside and avoid his problems itching under his skin, almost as strong as the need to spike a toss. He hasn't been to practice since the fallout, since he may be able to stand the sight of Kageyama's head, but he will absolutely fall apart if he has to see Kageyama on the court in that stupid threadbare sweater and black shorts, practicing jump serves and looking ethereal and perfect.

He comforts himself with the knowledge that it's almost March, and then he'll be on his way to Waseda, and Kageyama will be gone.

* * *

Graduation is a long, sad, exciting, nerve-wracking ceremony. There aren't enough adjectives in the world to describe how Hinata feels, really. It's exacerbated by the fact that he has to stand next to Yachi, whom he's grudgingly polite to, because it's not _her_ fault Kageyama is an asshole.

It's still cold outside, the wind like knives and the sun hiding behind the clouds, but fortunately the ceremony is held inside the gym. Hinata only has to wear two layers under his school uniform to stay reasonably warm. As they trudge to their seats to the band warbling some tired tune, he looks at the gleaming floors and painted lines and imagines the squeak of hundreds of shoes at a tournament and feels, suddenly, like crying.

Kageyama is three people behind him--Hisakawa, Inoue, and Ito--wearing a blank expression. Neither one of them looks out at the crowd, at their teachers and kouhai and parents. They don't look at each other, either. Well, okay, Hinata might sneak a few looks, but Kageyama is never looking back. (And if he is, Hinata assumes he's looking at Yachi.)

Halfway through the farewell speech, Hinata gets the crushing, desperate urge to pass him a note like in cram school, but his pockets are empty. It's probably for the best.

His intention is to go straight home, to avoid being overly emotional, but of _course_ the clubs are all standing outside with farewell signs, including the volleyball club, and he would be the biggest dick of all time if he didn't cry and hug everyone goodbye. Even Tsukishima stops to fist bump the second and first years ("awww, Tsukki!" " _Shut up_ , Yamaguchi.") and, well, Hinata definitely can't lose to _that_ bastard.

This unfortunately leads Kageyama and Hinata to accidentally meet face-to-face for the first time in a month when they both happen to turn from a farewell fistbump at the same time.

"Kageyama," Hinata says, in that same voice of surprise and anger he had the very first time he saw Kageyama practicing jump serves in the gymnasium.

"Hinata," Kageyama says back, kind of gruffly, maybe even shyly, rolling the cylindrical diploma case between his hands, staring at the ground. He looks grim and serious, but his cheeks are red. The second button from his blazer is missing, Hinata notices with a pang. "Can we talk?" he asks.

"What do you--" Hinata starts, still hostile, and then realizes people are staring. He forces himself to use his normal, peppy tone, like nothing is wrong. "Let's go talk somewhere else."

"Uh, right," Kageyama says, tugging on the hair that falls between his eyes.

Hinata recognizes that gesture, and it makes him so fucking mad he just stomps away toward the gym on autopilot, half-hoping Kageyama won't follow him.

Despite having avoided the gym over the past month, entering it is still comforting, almost like a religious experience. His shoes squeak on the court, freshly waxed, and he breathes in the air as deeply as he can. The nets are packed away, but he can still picture those perfect moments where he soared, and Kageyama was right beside him, and--

God dammit, no, he is not thinking about that right now.

He turns back to Kageyama, who's still pulling on that stupid fucking piece of hair, and folds his arms tightly across his chest. "So what did you want to say?"

"Just." Kageyama's eyes seem to be twitching, as though he's holding back from completely flaying Hinata skin from bone, and it's taking a lot of effort. "I'm sorry. For fucking things up. For telling Yachi when you didn't want me to--"

"I don't want to talk about that," Hinata snaps when the feelings start to rise and he can't push them back down.

"Right." Kageyama fists his hands and sticks them in his pockets. It's probably the first time Hinata has ever seen him in his full school uniform, inside the gym. He's chewing on his lip like he wants to say something else, but he doesn't.

"Great," Hinata says, even though he's so far from great it's not funny. "So we're done here?"

"Yeah."

"Great," he repeats, and spins dramatically on his heel to stomp outside the double doors for one final time, into the fresh cold air of the rest of his life.

"Actually, _no_ ," Kageyama says before Hinata can reach the classroom hallway. He's angry, the kind of black, murderous angry that used to make all Hinata's hair stand on end. "You don't want to talk about it, but I do. What happened--the culture festival, and Christmas--"

Hinata inhales sharply, breath catching in his throat, and holds it in.

"--that was. I mean. What did you think that was?"

 _Oh_.

He lets it all out in a messy sigh. "I don't know," he mumbles bitterly. "Not dating, apparently."

"Fine," Kageyama says, still using that dark, growly, what-the-fuck-have-you-been-doing-for-the-past-three-years, you're-wasting-so-much-potential-and-I-just-want-to- _kill_ -you tone. "Are you still going to Keio? I looked for you on the roster, but I didn't see you."

Right. Before the Yachi incident, they'd exchanged their ID numbers and promised to look for each other.

"I'm going to Waseda," he says.

Hinata swears that Kageyama's eyes literally _flash_. "You're _what?_ "

Hinata has just begun praying that his death is swift and painless, and that someone decent teaches Natsu how to serve underhand someday, and that somebody eventually finds his body to put his poor mother's mind at rest, when Yamaguchi skids to a halt in the hallway and yells, "Guys! There you are!"

Both Hinata and Kageyama freeze as Yamaguchi braces himself on his knees, panting.

"I've been looking for you ever since you both stormed off. Are you fighting?"

" _No_ ," they say in unison, then glare at each other for daring to speak at the same time.

"Oh." Yamaguchi blinks rapidly, taken aback. "Sorry. Is everything okay?"

" _We're fine_!"

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yes. In fact, I was just leaving," Hinata says, and pushes past him.

" _Oi, HINATA_ ," Kageyama yells, like he can't believe Hinata is _leaving_ , they're not finished _talking yet_.

 _Well, tough shit_ , Hinata thinks. He keeps walking, head down, and something hits him in the side of the head just before Kageyama blurs past in an angry cloud. He looks at the floor and finds something black and shiny rolling to a stop next to his foot.

It's a button.

Hinata picks it up. He stares at it and turns it over in his hands and wonders if he should go apologize. Is this the top button? It couldn't be the second one, because he already gave that to Yachi, right?

He did, didn't he? Hinata's not a complete fucking idiot, is he? Should he go get the tie clip he left home, shoved angrily and bitterly in his dresser drawer, and give it to him after all?

Yamaguchi interrupts his potential self-loathing with a tentative hand on his arm. "What happened between you two?"

"I don't know," he says, honestly, and shoves the button in his pocket. "I've gotta go."

He walks home beside his bike, pushing it up and down the hills with one hand (which is _extremely_ difficult) and holding his cell phone in the other. He composes at least ten messages to Kageyama but just ends up deleting them. What's he supposed to say, anyway?

_Was that your second or first button?_

_Did I just misunderstand something huge?_

What would he do if Kageyama said _yes, you fucking idiot_ , _now come back here and make out with me?_

In the end he puts his cell phone in his pocket and leaves it alone. It's best that way. They're going to separate universities. Waseda and Keio may be less than an hour apart by train, but the entire island might as well be between them.

It feels like it already is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ermm, sorry?
> 
>  **Edit** : So, somebody asked about the button thing, and here is what wikipedia has to say about it:
> 
>  
> 
> _The second button from the top of a male's uniform is often given away to a female he is in love with, and is considered a way of confession. The second button is the one closest to the heart and is said to contain the emotions from all three years attendance at the school. This practice was apparently made popular by a scene in a novel by Taijun Takeda._
> 
>  
> 
> Hope that helps if anyone was confused.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, betaed by [CaseyValhalla](http://caseyvalhalla.tumblr.com/).
> 
>  **Now with fanart!**  
> [Hinata and Kageyama on their awkward gay not-a-date](http://sadaf.co.vu/post/125549919053/tfw-you-try-to-draw-but-it-is-decidedly-bad-based) by [sadaf](http://sadaf.co.vu/)!!! Thank you so much! ;v;

University life sucks up a lot more of Hinata's free time than he imagined. Volleyball club is five hours a day, five days a week. That's twenty-five hours, whereas classes are only fifteen hours. It's like having a full time job, except with the addition of homework and ridiculously time-consuming reading assignments--and oh yeah, he still needs an _actual_ job to pay for important stuff like food and textbooks. He works at the 7-Eleven twelve hours a week, just enough for him to survive off the cheap, pre-wrapped food they sell there.

The one good thing about Waseda is Kenma. When he's not studying video game design or constantly playing Dragon Quest as part of his studies, he tosses for him and tells him about how his heroes, Yuji Horii and Tomonobu Itagaki, graduated from Waseda. He doesn't say the part he's really thinking, that he's gonna be just like them someday, but Hinata sees it in his eyes, a passion there that he did not have for volleyball. When Hinata asks him how he likes his classes, he doesn't shrug and say, "They're okay." He fucking smiles and says, "They're really interesting."

Hinata does not point out that he doesn't share the same optimism for his own future--that the last famous volleyball player to graduate from Waseda was a woman who only played on the national level in the 90's.

Possibly the worst thing about Waseda is that Kuroo is there, too.

"You _suck_ , shrimpy," Kuroo says at practice, holding a volleyball against his hip and squinting at him with a critical eye.

Which Hinata interprets as, 'you suck without Kageyama', and he balls his fists and hops in the air with rage and demands, "Take it back!"

"Then stop sucking so bad." Kuroo calmly serves the ball at his head, and when Hinata just barely receives it with a startled squawk, he adds, "At this rate, you're gonna be on the bench for Soukeisen."

"The what?" he asks, scrambling to retrieve the ball and send it back over the net.

"Soukeisen," Kuroo repeats.

Hinata tilts his head. "What's that?"

Kuroo stares at him for a second before he dissolves into obnoxious laughter. "Are you serious? You don't even know about Soukeisen? What were you doing on orientation day?"

"Ummm." Being utterly overwhelmed and trying to remember ten zillion things and retaining absolutely none of it.

"Right, that's what I thought." He's still smirking, wiping tears from his eyes. "You're too much, shrimpy. Maybe you ought to think about looking that up when we get back to the dorms."

" _Maybe you ought to think about looking that up_ ," Hinata mocks, face squinched up and hands forming his hair into Kuroo's strange, maybe-I-woke-up-in-the-back-of-a-truck-in-an-RV-park, maybe-I-just-style-my-hair-this-way spikes. Then Kuroo glares at him and he squeaks, darting to participate in whatever drill they're supposed to be running.

Maybe he will look it up, but certainly not because Kuroo told him to.

* * *

It turns out the Waseda recruiter hadn't been exaggerating when he'd clenched his fist and called Keio their eternal rivals. It's a thing. A really, really big _thing_.

It's called Soukeisen, like Kuroo said, and it's been going on--no fucking shit--since the Meiji era. There are special matches between the two universities held the last week of May and October. The biggest event is baseball, much to Hinata's eternal disappointment, but volleyball is on the list, too.

So of course, with the match being such a big fucking deal, and Hinata being such a massive dumbass, Hinata can't find his club jacket the day of the match in May.

"Kenmaaa!" he cries, banging on his door an hour before he has to be on the court--and the train ride itself is an hour, oh god, he is so fucked. Luckily Kenma and Kuroo both room in the athlete's dorm, just one floor down from Hinata, and he can recruit at least Kenma to help him. "Kenma, save meee!"

Kenma opens the door a sliver and stares at him. "Shouyou?"

"Kenma, I can't find my uniform and I'm gonna be late, you have to help me!" he begs, because Kenma has that whole freaky-observant thing going on, and any time Hinata loses something Kenma just shrugs his shoulder and says, 'did you check under your laundry pile?' and _there it is_.

"You're wearing your uniform," Kenma replies cooly. He's drinking a juice box and points to Hinata's shorts and jersey with the straw.

"Yeah, but--oh no, my track pants, too! Kenmaaaa, _help meeee_!"

Sighing, Kenma drains the last of his juice box and throws it over his shoulder into the disgusting pile of trash that accumulates in pretty much all dorm rooms of boys in Japan. (Hinata himself is hoarding a pile of clothes that he plans to take back to the house next weekend because he _cannot_ , for the life of him, figure out how to work the dormitory's laundry machines.)

They ascend the stairs to Hinata's dorm--Hinata with much more urgency than Kenma, who can't be fucked to hurry, because _he_ doesn't need to be at the gymnasium until the game actually starts in _two_ hours. Hinata dances around his impressive laundry pile, his discarded DS and paused game of Animal Crossing, the graveyard of cup noodle he's brought back from 7-Eleven, and flings all the remaining clothes out of his closet.

"Where is it!?"

Kenma, meanwhile, stares around the room with a sense of serenity and eventually says, "Is that it?"

Hinata removes himself bodily from his closet, feeling a glimmer of hope. "Is what it? Where? Where?"

Kenma points at a black sleeve poking out from under his pillow, and Hinata abruptly pales, white as paper.

"That's. Not it," he says.

"It's close enough," Kenma says, dodging Hinata's piles of disgustingness, and tugs the jacket out from under the pillow--then blinks, and looks at Hinata sideways. "It's too big for you," he observes, detached.

"It's not mine," he mutters over the frantic, jackhammer-like pounding of his heart, eyes wide.

Kageyama's jacket.

He can't say he forgot about it. Obviously, since it's been tucked underneath his pillow. Even though its been wrung of all Kageyama's scent, it still helps him sleep at night, feeling the scratchy, stretched-out cuffs against his cheek.

"Oh," Kenma says, disinterested, and drops the jacket on the bed. He leans over to check underneath, pawing past empty bottles of Calpis and Pocari Sweat. "Hmm, I don't see it."

Hinata frantically pulls at his hair and tries to stop looking at Kageyama's jacket. "Kenma, hurryyy, pleaaase! What am I gonna do?"

"I don't know," Kenma says, tapping his chin. His eyes slide back to the jacket on the bed. "Why don't you just wear that?"

It's tempting, a little. It doesn't say _Waseda_ on it, but it would be okay to wear on the train, probably, and cover up his disgusting sweat-covered jersey on the way home. He can just take it off when he gets to the court, and maybe nobody will notice. It's not like he's considering wearing it just to wrap himself up in it and amplify his self-indulgent wallowing, since Kuroo was right, and he's not one of the starters, he's on the bench.

Kenma glances at the clock on the disaster area that's supposed to be Hinata's desk and says, "You're out of time."

So Hinata wears the jacket, emphatically _not_ because it reminds him of Kageyama, but out of _necessity_. He shoves his arms through it, grabs a bottle of Pocari Sweat from the mini-fridge, and yells, "Thank-you-Kenma-bye!"

He absolutely does not turn his head to smell the jacket when he's squeezing himself into the corner of the train, stretching to hold onto one of the rings overhead. He does not feel a little pang in his chest and wonder about that button again. He does not, by any stretch of the imagination, miss Kageyama.

"You're late, shrimpy," Kuroo says when Hinata shows up, already stripping off the jacket and bundling it in his hands so nobody can see that it is not, in fact, the official Waseda volleyball club jacket.

"I know, I'm sorry!" he says. He sheds his gear at the bench in record time and slaps his cheeks with both hands. "I'm ready! Let's warm up!"

"Gonna have to stretch by yourself," Kuroo says, and Hinata notices he's already shed his track pants and jacket, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead as he stretches his arms behind his back. He jerks his head toward the court. "We just finished. Getting ready to have our turn doing warm-up drills."

Hinata follows his eyes to the volleyball net and promptly chokes on his heart.

Keio is there, practicing serves and spikes and receives, and one head of black hair stands above the rest, executing perfect set after set for his team.

Kageyama still looks good, _really_ good, in those volleyball shorts that frame his ass in a way Hinata has never appreciated so much before this moment, and Hinata is acutely aware that no matter how badly Kageyama hurt him, Hinata still wants to climb him like a tree.

"Shit," he mutters, not entirely sure who he's talking to, and drops to the floor to stretch his legs. He intends to focus on the pull of his calves, his hamstrings, but ends up watching Kageyama's back the whole time despite his best efforts not to. His eyes follow Kageyama as he wipes the sweat off his upper lip with the bottom of his jersey, flashing a stomach that is still toned--and why wouldn't it be, it's only been like two months, although it's felt much, much longer.

"Put your tongue back in your mouth," Kuroo tsks, and a second later a volleyball slams into the side of Hinata's head, presumably hit by Kuroo, and Hinata is appropriately distracted from his nostalgic ogling.

"I wasn't--it wasn't _out_ ," he says, rubbing his head where it was hit, while simultaneously reminding himself this is _bad_ , he's supposed to be mad at Kageyama, he's supposed to hate him.

He doesn't hate him, though. He's horrified to realize he does actually miss him.

Watching Kageyama from the bench is more tormenting than he'd imagined. When he'd pictured squaring off against him again, finally, he'd always thought about spiking past Kageyama's block, wearing the number 1 on the back of his shirt, flying high. He's disappointed to be sitting, hands clenched, knees jiggling anxiously as he watches the game.

He should be cheering for his team, he knows, but the truly embarrassing thing is, when Kuroo serves and the cheer squad (an all-male squad called the Shockers, he is _so fucking serious_ ) starts their chant, Hinata finds himself sort of wishing for Kageyama to smack the ball back over the net, even though that's so wrong and against school spirit.

He can't help thinking he doesn't belong at Waseda, he belongs at Keio, hitting Kageyama's toss.

So the game is torture, and it continues to be torture until it finally finishes, Keio triumphant (because Kageyama is still a genius and his team is stronger for it) and Waseda promising retribution at the October match.

They're cleaning up afterwards, Hinata zipping himself back into the jacket, when he feels a gaze upon him like a knife in his back, cold and deadly. He looks up and sees blue eyes glaring at him from across the court.

"Erm," he says, staggering back, red all the way up to his fucking ears as he realizes what he's _wearing_ , and who he's wearing it _in front of_.

"Somethin' wrong?" Kuroo asks as he pours the remainder of his water over his face, eyes closed. Kenma stands nearby with a look of disapproval and a towel.

"N-no. Nothing at all. I've just gotta, um. _Pee_."

Kuroo cracks open one eye and mutters, "TMI," and Hinata trips over the bench twice in his hurry to get the fuck out of there.

He hyperventilates in the hallway outside the gym for a while, as long as he can get away with. Kageyama doesn't follow him, so he thinks maybe he's safe, maybe he didn't notice. But then he pokes his head around the corner and sees Kageyama standing by Kuroo, a white towel hanging around his neck, gesticulating wildly and perhaps angrily with his hands.

"Oh, noooo," he moans, even as curiosity ignites his blood, and he knows he will die, _literally die_ , if he doesn't find out what Kageyama and Kuroo are talking about.

He waits until Kageyama's teammates call for him, and Kageyama gives Kuroo this disappointed little wave and jogs off. Only then does he slink from the shadows of the hallway and tiptoe his way to Kuroo's shoulder.

"So what'd Kageyama want?" he asks, and Kageyama's name feels strange in his mouth, because although he's thought it a lot, he realizes it's been months since he's held the shape of it on his lips.

"None of your business," Kuroo replies. He takes the proffered towel from Kenma and wipes down his face as though the conversation could possibly end there.

"It is," he insists, and because he has the emotional capacity of an actual ten-year-old, he tugs on Kuroo's sweaty sleeve and _whines_ , "Tell meee!"

"What," Kuroo says, blinking at him with a hint of teasing behind his feline eyes, "just because it's Kageyama, you think that means it automatically involves you?"

"Uh, no. What." Sweat suddenly dribbles down his temples, even though he didn't play a single second in today's game. He swallows nervously and averts his eyes. "That's not what I meant."

"Is that so," Kuroo says, smirking.

"Kuroo," Kenma says in that quiet, stern way. "Stop teasing Shouyou."

"You're taking his side?" Kuroo asks in disbelief.

"Yes," Kenma says.

They seem to engage in a staring contest after that, and Hinata is afraid it will never end, because he knows cats, and he knows they never blink. So he swallows his pride and leaps upon Kuroo's back to recapture his attention, locking all four of his limbs around Kuroo's waist as he yells directly in his ear, "Hey, Kuroo, pay attention to me! What did Kageyama _say_?"

"Holy shit!" Kuroo staggers under Hinata's weight. Slight though he may be, he has momentum, and he is happy to point out that he has grown several centimetres since Kuroo last saw him in high school.

"Tell me already!" he demands, and tugs on Kuroo's hair.

"Just tell him," Kenma agrees as he hides a small smile.

"All right, all right." Kuroo pries Hinata's legs from around his waist and unceremoniously dumps him on the hard floor. "He was asking about you."

Hinata, who has fallen face-first and is enjoying the drama of acting like he's dying, snaps upright in an instant. "What'd he ask!?"

Kuroo rakes a hand through his eternal bedhead and sighs, as though humoring a small child. "Calm down, shrimpy, don't piss yourself. You'll find out soon enough, I expect."

No matter how much Hinata wheedles, Kuroo will not divulge anymore information than that. And although Hinata thinks his heart should be clouding with anger, instead it swells with something kind of like hope.

* * *

If Hinata is honest with himself, there are a lot of ways he imagines that hope manifesting.

Kageyama showing up at 7-Eleven during the night shift is not one of them.

The automatic doors chime as they open, and Hinata is so brain-dead already after three hours of restocking candy displays that he doesn't even raise his head, just drones out his boring, "Welcome to 7-Eleven," and flips a page in the magazine he's not supposed to be reading.

There's a pause, and then a familiar voice says, "Hi," and Hinata promptly screeches and knocks over the display of bizarrely-flavored bubble gum at his elbow.

"Uh, hi!" He scrambles to collect the fallen gum and rearrange the display into some semblance of order. His back is to Kageyama now, and he feels safe tacking on a harried, "How are you?"

"Fine."

Hinata tells himself he's just greeting an old classmate he kinda doesn't get along with, like he'd be polite to Oikawa, or maybe Tsukishima in one of his particularly catty moods. There's no reason to freak out.

"So, wh-what are you doing here?" he asks, and cringes at the stutter, so very glad that Kageyama can't see his face.

"Just buying dinner," Kageyama mutters. He hovers for a moment, like maybe there's more to it than that, and abruptly turns on his heel and marches down an aisle.

Hinata turns around after counting to one hundred and is relieved to see Kageyama isn't looking back at him. Instead Kageyama is walking systematically down each aisle, picking up and examining literally almost every cup of instant noodles until he finds one that apparently satisfies him. When he turns back toward Hinata, Hinata panics, grabs the magazine he'd been reading earlier and holds it in front of his face like he wasn't watching him the entire time.

The magazine is upside down.

He laughs nervously as Kageyama thumps down his single cup of ramen. He picks it up with quivering fingers and tries to scan it--drops it, and tries to scan it again. If only his hands would stop shaking.

"180 yen, please," he says, and his voice is a squeak, pinched so tight to keep all the other words from spilling out.

 _What fucking button did you give me at graduation?_ is the loudest, most prominent thought he won't let escape. The button in question is still in the pocket of his uniform pants, hanging in the closet at his mom's house. He couldn't bring himself to throw it away.

Kageyama wordlessly puts his money on the little blue tray on the counter.

Hinata's glad of the excuse to look down, away from him, and focus on the cash drawer. It helps him ignore the way his cheeks burn when he asks, "Why are you buying dinner in Shinjuku, anyway? Isn't it a little out of your way?"

"I asked Kuroo where you work," Kageyama says gruffly, shaking his bangs into his face in a familiar gesture that makes Hinata's chest absolutely _clench_.

"Y-you what?" He drops the change and bangs his head on the counter when he hastily leans down to pick it up. "Ow, fuck--I mean, why? Why did you ask that?"

Kageyama shrugs and refuses to look at him. "You were on the bench."

"It's only temporary," he says immediately and defensively. It's an impulse, to stand up straight and wave his arms in the air like they're in high school and Kageyama has just insulted his receives.

"You said you'd beat me, no matter what," Kageyama tells the hideous bubble gum display with a scowl.

"Well--yeah! I will! I'm not giving up!" He doesn't know where this bravado is coming from, but it feels kind of nice, to talk to Kageyama like they used to, even if they are ignoring the larger problem between them.

"You're not practicing enough," Kageyama grunts.

Like thirty hours a week, actually. He thinks that's a lot. But he probably practiced more when he was fourteen, trying to get accepted to Karasuno.

"You don't know that," he says, pouting.

"Look, that's not." Kageyama sighs and tosses his hair, eyebrow twitching. "That's not what I wanted to say. I'm trying to ask if you want--help."

"I don't need _help_." Hinata is offended by the very thought of requiring help from him, like he is something lesser. He shoves Kageyama's cup noodle in a plastic bag and throws it on the counter between them, hoping he'll leave now that he's done antagonizing him.

"You're so fucking difficult," Kageyama yells instead of leaving. "I'm asking if you want to practice together again!"

The color drains from Hinata's face, then suddenly floods back in all at once, darker and hotter than before. "You want to what!?"

"Practice." Kageyama bites the words out. "You're out of shape, you skipped practice the last month of high school, you're on the _bench_ when you haven't been benched in almost three years--"

"I told you, it's _temporary_ ," he says.

"Whatever." Kageyama hooks his fingers through the bag's plastic handles and dangles it limply at his side. "Do you want to or not?"

"Yes, but." He chews his lip and feels his stomach churn. "No."

"Well, that clears things up."

"Don't you think it's a bad idea?" he asks.

"I don't know if you noticed, but--" Kageyama pauses, grits his teeth, and glances around. When he sees they're alone, he directs his glare at Hinata, the one that means he will absolutely murder him, no questions asked, and says, "If you repeat this to anyone, _I will kill you_."

"Uh, okay?" He shrinks back, because he believes him.

"I'm not. Exactly. At the top of my game either." His cheeks turn pink and he rushes to add, "It's not like I'm benched or anything, though. I'm still a starter. Just, nobody can keep up with me the way--"

The way Hinata could.

Hinata knows it's a bad idea, but he also knows his resolve is crumbling. He's already asking himself dangerous questions like, 'how bad can it be?' and 'what's the worst that could happen?'

(Lose interest in volleyball completely, stay in bed for an entire month instead of a week, fail out of university, get his heart broken _again_.)

The doors beep as more customers wander in, a pair of girls in high school uniforms who are looking for snacks. Hinata suddenly recalls his work duties and greets them, a little sputtery, because Kageyama is still standing in front of him with that intense expression, eyebrows knitted together and his mouth a cranky slash near his chin.

Hinata remembers what it was like to kiss that mouth, kind of. It was warm. So warm.

He opens his own mouth, not completely sure what's going to come out ( _what button did you give me_ , _who hits your tosses now_ , _please leave, please don't put me through this again_ ) and surprises himself by saying, "Okay. How about on Sundays?"

* * *

As promised (hastily, before the girls plopped their puddings on the counter), Hinata rides the Yamanote line for an hour on Sunday to meet Kageyama for practice. He wears shorts and a flimsy T-shirt and holds his athletic bag on his lap as the train jostles him around. Two stinky businessmen sit on either side of him, still boozed up from the night before and taking up all the elbow room with their briefcases. Standing in the aisle, an elderly woman makes sad eyes at him until he finally gets up and lets her have his seat. (The business men, he notices, abruptly require less space once she sits down.)

The cost of the train means he has to bring his lunch two days on campus, but it's worth it as he bounds off the steps, slinging his bag over his shoulder, and runs toward the park where they're meeting. He apologizes to the several old women carrying groceries he accidentally knocks over before he decides, fuck it, and steps off the sidewalk and runs in the bike path. The swears of the men on road racers are louder and more creative than the old ladies he almost knocked over, but they somehow seem to carry less malice, like they've recognized him as a fellow athlete and they understand he has places to be.

Kageyama is waiting for him at the park, sitting on a bench with his bag by his feet, checking his phone.

"Kageyama!" he yells--or tries to yell. He's so out of breath from running here that he collapses on his face right at Kageyama's feet, gasping for air. The back of his shirt is already sticky with sweat, pooling at the small of his back.

"Dumbass," Kageyama says, which is kind of like a greeting. He nudges Hinata with his foot and says, "Get up. I warmed up without you."

"I'm--warm--" he gasps, still trying to gain control of his breathing. He looks up at Kageyama's stupid scowling face and feels warm all over, in fact.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," he says, recognizing the fluttery feeling in his stomach and not liking what it means, not one bit.

"You're giving up already?" Kageyama points accusingly.

"No! Just--don't you think--isn't this awkward?"

"It's not awkward," Kageyama says, although the blush on his face says otherwise, and Hinata wonders if he's thinking about Yachi. If she's being a good girlfriend, if she's met his parents yet. If Kageyama blows on her hands to keep them warm (which is the stupidest thought ever, because it's almost June, and it's hot outside and Hinata is sweating just thinking about somebody blowing hot air on his fingers).

"Anyway," Kageyama pushes forward as though there isn't a very large elephant in the room, "If you don't warm up properly, you'll be sore tomorrow, and then you won't be able to practice efficiently."

"Ugh, you sound like Kuroo," Hinata says, stretching an arm across his chest even though he really hates doing things just because Kageyama tells him to.

"What's the point in practicing extra if it just ruins your normal practice? If you're not at the top of your game in October, I won't show any mercy. I'll crush you."

And that's what it takes to light the fire under Hinata's ass, to get him leaping to his feet and stretching in earnest: that old rivalry.

"I won't let you beat me," he declares, touching his toes, careful not to bounce too much because Kuroo says that's bad for his muscles.

"I wouldn't expect any less," Kageyama says smugly. He waits for Hinata to finish warming up, then spins the volleyball he'd taken out of his athletic bag on his fingers and raises his eyebrows devilishly. "You up for some receive practice? That always was your weakness."

Hinata is more than happy to show him what thirty hours of practice a week can do for a weak receive.

* * *

He is in Kenma's room two months later on a Saturday, hanging upside down on Kenma's bed with his DS clutched in his hands while Kenma sits on the floor. Their heads are close to each other, both focused on their individual games. Hinata is trying to catch a banded dragonfly with his net, although he wouldn't exactly say no the birdwing butterfly he can see in the flowers, either, while Kenma presumably picks the most fetching dye job for his Furfrou.

It's all quite normal, and Hinata is pointedly not thinking about how much he's looking forward to practicing with Kageyama the next day, when Kenma turns his head and kisses him full on the mouth.

Once he's done blushing and sputtering (which goes on for quite some time), Hinata stares with impossibly wide eyes and yelps, "What was that!?"

"I kissed you," Kenma says calmly. His eyes are back on his game. After much deliberation, he chooses the Kabuki trim. Probably because it's red.

"I COULD KINDA TELL," he says, unsure why he's yelling, just that the situation requires it, somehow. " _WHY_ DID YOU KISS ME?"

Kenma shrugs. "Kuroo kissed me yesterday."

All the things Hinata thinks maybe he knows about this moment suddenly disappear, and he's left blinking rapidly. He drops his DS to the floor (sorry, little dragonfly, you cannot be in the museum) and grabs Kenma by the shoulders. "He did what now?"

"Kissed me," he mutters, hunching.

"Okay, well, that's, I mean, _wow_." He blinks some more and decides to sit on the floor next to him. "So wait, what does that have to do with kissing me?"

Kenma is beginning to show signs of embarrassment. The tips of his ears are pink and he's chewing his bottom lip. "I wanted to see if it felt the same."

"And, uh, did it?" Hinata asks, unsure if he wants to know the answer.

Kenma shakes his head. "No."

"What did it feel like with Kuroo?"

"I don't know," Kenma says distantly. He tilts his head toward the ceiling and closes his eyes. "Kind of. Nice. And floaty."

"I see," Hinata says, nodding, then is suddenly struck by another _very_ important thought. "If you needed something to compare it to, does that mean Kuroo was your first kiss!?"

"Yes," Kenma says. Some of Hinata's urgency must rub off, because his eyes open wide a second later and he rushes to ask, "That wasn't your first kiss, was it?"

"No! No way, definitely not."

"Oh, good," Kenma sighs in relief.

And that, Hinata hopes, is it. End of discussion. He thinks his brain might explode if Kenma even dares to ask--

"Who was it, then?"

 _That_.

"Um. Uh." He runs his hands through his hair so it sticks up even _more_ at odds. He doesn't usually hide things from Kenma, but this, this is personal, and also _over_. "I'd rather not say?"

"It was Kageyama, wasn't it," Kenma says.

His heart stops. "How did you know?"

"Pretty obvious," Kenma says, shrugging.

"Oh my god." Hinata buries his face in his hands and tugs at his hair so hard it hurts, but it does nothing to distract from the way his face is going to burst into flames. He wants to turn into a pile of dust and blow away in the wind. He wants to die. "That's. So. Embarrassing."

"It's not really," Kenma mutters. "How long?"

Hesitantly, Hinata peeks at him between his fingers. "How long what?"

"Have you been dating."

Oh god. If Hinata had wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole before, now Hinata wants the earth to implode, would prefer the sun supernova'd and burnt them all into an immediate crisp than have this conversation.

He forces the words out, although they taste bitter: "We're not. It was--before. In high school."

"Oh," Kenma says. He does look up, then, and blinks at Hinata like that wasn't the answer he was expecting.

 _Don't you dare fucking ask_ , Hinata thinks at himself, even as the urge rises, and he can feel his lips shaping the words. _Don't ask, don't ask, you don't need to ask--okay FUCK IT just ask._

"Why did you think we were dating?" he blurts.

"Dunno," Kenma says evasively, eyes cutting back to his game.

"Kenmaaa!" He's not shrieking, but it's a close thing. He flops onto Kenma's lap--please don't let Kuroo come to investigate the shrieking and see _this_ hot mess going down--and grapples with his shoulders. "Come on, you have to tell me!"

Kenma grunts and holds his DS over his head. "I don't know. The way you act together?"

"We don't act like anything," Hinata insists, although his heart is suddenly, mysteriously lodged in his throat.

"Don't ask for my opinion if you're just going to ignore it," Kenma huffs.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, how do we act?"

Kenma sighs, seeming to sense he is absolutely not going to win any Pokemon Contests at this rate, shuts his DS and tosses it on his bed. He fixes his sharp gold eyes on Hinata until Hinata starts fidgeting, and only then does he ask, "Do you still like him?"

" _No_ ," he says immediately, although his face is so, so hot he thinks, with a wild surge of hope, maybe the sun is actually supernova-ing and sparing him from this fate.

"You do," Kenma observes.

"Maybe a little," he mumbles. "But it doesn't matter. He has a girlfriend."

"No, he doesn't."

Hinata's head jerks up so fast he almost cracks it on the bed frame they're leaning against. "What?"

"He doesn't," Kenma repeats. "Nobody comes to his games for him."

"How do you know that?"

"Kuroo goes to all of Keio's games to keep an eye on them." His cheeks darken slightly as he adds, "I go with him."

Hinata takes a moment to reflect on that blush before the words settle in and he deflates, because his hopes had apparently risen without his permission, and now they're back in the mud.

"Just because you don't see her doesn't mean she's not there," he says. "She's kinda small, so you might miss her. She used to be our manager."

"Yachi-san?" Kenma guesses.

"Yeah. Yachi." He still hates saying her name.

"She's not there."

"W-well." Hinata's brain is scrambling to think of an excuse that will not result in that stupid, annoying feeling of _hope_. "Just because she doesn't go, that doesn't mean they're not still dating, right?"

"Ask him yourself," Kenma says.

"I can't do that!"

Kenma sighs and shrugs at the same time, and that's pretty much the universal sign that he's lost interest in a conversation and will not be pursuing it further. Basically the _okay, not my problem_ of body language.

And his face is still a little pink, which reminds Hinata with a jolt why they started this entire conversation in the first place.

"Back up, back up, did you say Kuroo kissed you and it made you feel _floaty?_ " He sits up and grabs Kenma by the shoulders again, shaking him hard. "Kenma! Are you dating Kuroo now!?"

Kenma looks as though his teeth are rattling around in his head. "No?"

"Are you going to?" he presses.

Kenma squeaks, "Maybe?"

"Gross!"

"I didn't call you gross for kissing Kageyama."

"Because Kageyama isn't _gross_ like _Kuroo_."

"Kuroo isn't gross."

He is, and Hinata begins detailing all the reasons why Kuroo is a disgusting human being who has probably never met a comb in his life. The squabbling distracts him, for the most part, but there's still that thought in the back of his mind, burrowing deep and creating a home.

Maybe Kageyama's not dating Yachi.

_What fucking button was that._

* * *

Kuroo and Kenma are a strange couple, Hinata realizes rather quickly.

They're strange because almost nothing changes. Hinata expected to feel like a third wheel, or to no longer be invited to post-practice meat bun excursions, or just, _something_. Instead they're exactly as they were, literally nothing different, still touching elbows and shoulders and looking at each other softly when the other isn't watching.

It's pretty obvious, in retrospect, that they liked each other.

(Kenma had confessed this, that he really does like Kuroo, under the white glow of his DS in the dead of the night while Hinata peppered him with questions about team weaknesses, so Hinata could prove his worth and get a starter position. Hinata had smiled a little and replied, predictably, that Kuroo is gross.)

"Have you always been like this?" he asks after practice one day, as Kuroo is waving enthusiastically to Kenma, who is waiting for them outside with a scarf wrapped prematurely around his neck, because it's September and it's not really that cold yet.

"Like what?"

"Like, you know." He gestures vaguely with his hands, unsure of the words he's looking for. "Like. Couple-y."

"Well, I guess," Kuroo says. His arm slides easily around Kenma's waist, and Kenma maybe even looks a little pleased about it. He pecks Kenma on the cheek and says, "Have we always been a couple and just never noticed it?"

"Probably," Kenma says, and he's giving Hinata the side eye, _hard_.

Kuroo follows his gaze and laughs. "Yeah, like some other people we know."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Hinata declares loudly, maybe a little too loudly, because students walking nearby shoot him annoyed looks and cross to the other side of the courtyard.

"Seriously, just ask him and put us out of our fuckin' misery, would you?" Kuroo says.

Kenma nods from beneath Kuroo's arm, as though he's saying yes, please do.

"I'm _gonna_ ," Hinata says, although he had not yet decided he was really going to, not yet, but now it's out there and he can't take it back.

"Any time this century?" Kuroo asks.

"This Sunday, at practice," Kenma suggests quietly.

"Nah, he's gonna wuss out, there's no way," Kuroo says with an obnoxious glimmer in his eyes.

Waseda campus is beautiful in the fall. Sandstone-colored buildings and tall trees that are just starting to think about turning, just barely tinged with the rainbow of colors they will become. Wood benches and rolling hills and just the right amount of green grass to contrast with the concrete walkways.

It's beautiful, yeah, but Hinata doesn't get to enjoy it much, not when he's friends with gross assholes like Kuroo, who says stuff that pisses him off and has him scowling at the ground. The concrete sidewalk isn't interesting at all, but it's what he's staring at when he puffs out his chest and says, "Next match, I'll--talk to him."

That's one month away. Four practices to spend gawking at Kageyama's nice legs and wondering about Yachi and buttons.

Plenty of time for him to prepare to face Kageyama on the court again, and _plenty_ of time to come up with a debonair plan to ask Kageyama about Yachi.

* * *

At the October Soukeisen match, Hinata is second string, and he gets a chance to play after the starter gets blocked for about the fifth time in a row and Coach decides he needs a break. That's how he ends up face-to-face with Kageyama on the court--or, well, as face-to-face as you can be when there's a net between you, like staring into a prison yard full of blue-eyed rivals. Rivals that are staring back at you with an intensity that turns your knees into jelly.

Hinata knows this is it, his big chance to prove to Coach that he's first string material, but he finds himself scanning the crowd for Yachi in between sets, rather than studying the opposing team the way he knows he's supposed to.

He doesn't see her. It's both unsettling and a relief.

Kageyama brings out the best in Hinata's abilities, because he always has, and Hinata doesn't think he's imagining the way Coach's eyes widen a little, or the satisfied smirk on Kageyama's face when Hinata genuinely spikes past his block. That smirk speaks volumes, and he finds himself grinning back when he lands, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt as gross Kuroo noogies him and says, "Good job, shrimpy!" and Coach pretends like he wasn't just pumping his fist in the air.

The game isn't decided until the third set--Keio wins one, then Waseda. Keio reaches 20 points first, but Waseda rallies, and the entire team is screaming about HOW DO YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF REVENGE after Hinata's last spike, and he doesn't realize they've won until Kenma is on the court smiling at him and Kuroo has lifted him onto his shoulders.

And across the net, Kageyama is drenched in sweat, breathing hard, but looks like there's no one he'd rather lose to, if he absolutely has to.

They both hang around after their gear is packed and they're zipped back up into their respective club jackets. (Hinata eventually found his under his mattress, which is weird, but probably not the weirdest thing he will do in university.)

When no small, bubbly blonde comes rushing out of the stands to latch onto Kageyama's arm and babble at him, Hinata takes it upon himself to sidle up alongside him and ask, "Yachi doesn't come to your games?"

It's not debonair or smooth or any of the things Hinata had wanted, but the point is he said it, and now it's out there for Kageyama to do whatever he wants with it.

Kageyama looks at him as though he is the dumbest person on earth. "No. Why would she?"

 _Rude_ , Hinata thinks, because he would go to all of Kageyama's games if he were his boyfriend.

"I dunno," he says, fingers playing with the strap of his athletic bag, adjusting it up and down, longer then shorter. He glances up at Kageyama and tells his heart to stay the fuck inside his chest. "Did you. Break up?"

"Break up?" Kageyama says, narrowing his eyes. "What are you talking about?"

 _Don't get your hopes up, don't get your fucking hopes up, you literal piece of human garbage, Hinata, what are you_ doing _\--_

"You and Yachi. I know we never really talked about it, but I heard her confessing to you, or you confessing to her or whatever, and you asked her to d-date you officially."

He hates himself for the way he trips on that word, he really does, but it's the hardest one to push out.

"Hinata," Kageyama says, and his voice is dark and rich and powerful. "I was never dating Yachi."

His heart ignores _all_ his warnings and promptly pounds out of his chest. "But--I heard you. You said something like, 'please go out with me officially', under the bleachers in February." It may have even been Valentine's Day. The memory is so romantic it makes him kind of sick.

"You fucking _idiot_ ," Kageyama says. "I was rehearsing confessing to _you_."

Hinata's entire world shifts, and he shifts with it, stumbling over his own feet.

"At graduation," he says, and licks his lips, remembering the button in his pocket in the closet in his mom's house. (How could he forget it? He thinks about it every day.) "Your second button was missing."

"Yeah, I gave it to you, remember?"

"More like you threw it at my head!"

"Well, yeah, because you were _running away_!"

Heads swivel and people stare at them. Hinata ducks his head and makes an effort to lower his voice.

"That's so stupid," he whisper-yells at Kageyama's red face. "Why didn't you just tell me that? Why did you need to practice confessing to me when we were basically already dating?"

"That's why I said _officially_ , jackass." Kageyama looks like he can't believe how phenomenally stupid they both are and shakes his head. "We really fucked that up, huh."

"Yeah," Hinata breathes, hard as it is to make his lungs function at this moment. "So you. Really liked me. I wasn't just delusional. That really happened?"

"Of course I did," Kageyama snaps, like he's offended Hinata would think otherwise. "Why do you think I kept all those dumb notes you passed me, or why I was so pissed off when you decided to go to Waseda just to avoid me?"

"I failed the Keio exam," Hinata says wonderingly. His expression is starting to reflect Kageyama's. _How were we this fucking dumb_.

Kageyama runs his hands through his hair, pulls on that piece that's always on his forehead, like he's examining all the erroneous memories he's tucked away inside his skull. "So you weren't just mad that I outed you to Yachi," he says slowly, piecing it together. "You were--jealous?"

"So jealous," Hinata says, not even ashamed of it, and takes a step closer.

Too close. Kageyama chokes on a failed attempt to breathe and coughs, taking two quick steps away.

"This isn't really the right place for this," he says once he's recovered from his impromptu coughing fit.

"So come to my dorm," Hinata says, because this needs to be 1000% resolved before any more misunderstandings can happen.

"What?" croaks Kageyama.

"Come back to my dorm," he says. When Kageyama looks like he might faint, he explains, as though speaking to a brain-damaged five-year-old, "Instead of taking the train back to Minato, come to my room and we'll finish talking."

"I don't. Um."

"We'll just smuggle you in," Hinata continues, remembering the ID card swiper and sign-in sheet for guests they're really not allowed to have. "You can wear my Waseda jacket. It's the athlete dorm, so you'll blend right in."

"Your jacket is too small," Kageyama says, as though that's the bigger problem here.

"Then you can wear Kuroo's jacket, who cares." He's not letting a little thing like jacket size get in the way of a very important discussion that's more than half a year overdue.

Kuroo, hearing his name--or taking his name as his cue to stop acting like he isn't eavesdropping--lifts his head and yells, "What about me?"

"I need your jacket," Hinata yells back.

"Sorry, shrimpy. Occupado." He points to Kenma, who is tucked against his side and already wearing it, and grins as though he is enjoying the infinite agony he's putting Hinata through.

"Kenma, it's an emergency!" Hinata says.

Kenma's eyes, so sharp and speculative, flick between Hinata and Kageyama for just a moment. Then his mouth curls in the slightest smile, and he shrugs out of Kuroo's jacket in one easy, fluid motion and throws it to Kageyama.

"Make sure it stays _clean_ ," Kuroo says.

"Shut the fuck up," replies Kageyama as he strips out of his own jacket and shoves it into his bag. The characters for Waseda look so good on his broad back when he puts Kuroo's jacket on, and Hinata is struck by how much he wants to just sit in his lap until neither one of them can move.

Huh. He didn't have those kinds of thoughts in high school. Kuroo's grossness must be rubbing off on him more than he realized.

 _Don't think about rubbing off right now_ , he chastises himself, ripping his eyes away from Kageyama's back, and starts pulling Kageyama towards the exit instead.

"Come on, come on, it's a quick walk," he says.

Kageyama doesn't reply, but that's okay.

The rest of the team is going to a family restaurant to celebrate, but Hinata tells them he has stomach cramps, and they all know what that means and allow him to escape. They don't question the tall, skulking guy wearing their team jacket, and Hinata has never been so grateful to a group of people who put him through grueling physical pain five days a week. (University sports clubs are more like boot camp than anything else, Hinata has learned, although he can't complain much.)

Hinata scans them in, and he's so jumpy he literally springs up the stairs, catching Kageyama when he stumbles behind him and hauling him bodily to his room.

As soon as his key fits in the lock, the nerves hit him, and he starts babbling.

"So, uh, it's really messy, and I probably should have thought about that before deciding this would be a good place to talk, and I should probably apologize, but, I mean, I'm sparing you from a really shitty train ride, so you should be _thanking_ me--"

"Hinata," Kageyama growls as he fumbles open the door and they're standing in his tiny shoebox of a room, "shut up."

Hinata shuts up. He closes the door behind them and drops his bag on the floor with a thump that should be louder, but his blood is roaring in his ears and he thinks he can feel the warmth of Kageyama's body radiating toward him. They're face-to-face, practically toe-to-toe, and Hinata could count Kageyama's individual eyelashes if he wanted to.

Kageyama licks his lips nervously. "If you don't move, I'm going to kiss you."

Normally it's almost impossible for Hinata to keep still, but hearing that threat--if he can even call it a threat considering how much he wants it to happen--he clenches his jaw and all his muscles and focuses his entire being on not moving an inch.

Kageyama crowds him against the door, frames his face with his hands, and looms over him with a furrowed, troubled expression. Hinata holds his breath until Kageyama finally dips his head and kisses him, and then Hinata's hands are instantly in his hair, tugging him down so hard he almost chips a tooth. Kageyama slides his knee between Hinata's legs like it's an impulse, and Hinata prides himself on not immediately grinding against it, because this is still new, still tentative, and he doesn't want Kageyama to run away because Hinata can't control popping a boner.

"Fucking finally," Hinata mumbles, when Kageyama pulls back to look at him. "You're gonna keep doing that, right?"

"We're supposed to talk," Kageyama answers, flushing. His fingers play with the hem of Hinata's shirt as though he's contemplating rucking it up or just ripping it off altogether.

"Yeah, um. Talk. Okay." Hinata wipes the spit off his mouth but doesn't move away. He keeps his hands in Kageyama's hair, massaging his scalp, wondering at how soft it is, and how did he live without knowing this for practically eight fucking months.

"So," Kageyama prompts.

"I think we should go out," Hinata says, because that seems easiest.

"Yeah, okay."

He blinks. "That's it? Just yeah, okay?"

"Yes," Kageyama says, and he kisses him again, harder than before, and Hinata thinks maybe a little thing like a hard-on might not scare him away after all. In fact, when Hinata presses closer, he can feel an answering line of hard warmth against his stomach that's very flattering, if not a little surprising. They're just kissing, but it's so _nice_ , and Hinata feels flushed all over and nobody has ever put their hands up his jersey before, and can anybody blame him for getting a little excited about it?

Apparently Kageyama can, because he looks startled and pulls back. "Sorry, that--I mean, you know--sorry, I'll just--"

"It's okay," Hinata mumbles, or something close to it, and chases his mouth to keep kissing him, locks his head in place with his arms. It's okay, it's exceptionally okay, it's so okay he can feel it in his toes; so absolutely, amazingly okay that he indulges himself and finds himself biting the cord of muscle in Kageyama's neck, which he's never done before, never even fantasized about doing before, and it's awesome.

He assumes Kageyama thinks it's awesome, too, judging by the way Kageyama suddenly groans and gets his hands down the back of Hinata's loose track pants. He holds Hinata's hips, scrapes his nails over the curve of his ass, a move that feels sexy and choreographed, and Hinata would be way more on board with this if he hadn't just thought of something that makes his stomach drop like lead.

"Hey, Kageyama," he says, squirming to put some distance between them.

Kageyama grunts something that might be, "What?" or might be, "What are you _doing_ , you fucking idiot, get back here right this instant, you just told me this is _okay_."

"Did you--with anyone else--while we were--?" He can't bring himself to say it. If the answer is yes, he hopes he never meets that person, because he's alarmingly bloodthirsty at the thought of Kageyama grinding against anyone else but him.

"No," Kageyama says.

"Oh." He's so relieved that he slumps forward, his forehead on Kageyama's shoulder, and just--holds on. Grips his arms and nuzzles Kageyama's neck and breathes a little easier, sexual urgency forgotten. "Me neither," he says.

"So you're still--?"

"Don't _say it_ ," he hisses, tilting his head to press his mouth to the side of Kageyama's throat. Kageyama swallows, and Hinata can feel his throat jump underneath his lips. It's the most intimate fucking thing he's ever experienced, and he just felt Kageyama's dick against his belly like, two minutes ago.

"I am too, if that helps."

"It doesn't," he says, because it's too embarrassing.

"We probably shouldn't," Kageyama says, hesitantly removing his hands from the back of Hinata's pants, face blank and flaming like he has no idea how they got in there.

"Probably," Hinata agrees, but he wants, he _wants_.

Kageyama clears his throat and straightens Hinata's jersey, where he'd pulled it aside and exposed his hip bones. "So. You wanna watch a movie?"

"Yes," Hinata says immediately, all too happy to clear a suitable space on his bed and burrow against Kageyama's side, breathing in that scent he's missed so much. When Hinata slides his arms around him, Kageyama's muscles bunch underneath his hands, but then Kageyama returns the gesture and they watch the movie.

Mostly.

* * *

"So, how did it go?" Kuroo asks on Monday morning as they're stretching, standing on one leg as he pulls the other one against his ass.

He's smirking entirely too much, and Hinata doesn't like it.

So he grins and says, "I think I owe you a new jacket."

The thud Kuroo makes when he falls over is extraordinarily satisfying.

* * *

They're stretching together in the grass in December; soft, static stretches that are part of their cooldown routine, sweat dripping down their faces and arms as they press their noses to their knees and enjoy the burn in their muscles. The park is more or less deserted this early in the morning, nothing beyond stray joggers and businessmen staggering home like they spent the night in an alley after drinking too much and missing the last train. The sun is just starting to peek over the horizon, illuminating the trees and the branches and the clouds. It's cold, so cold, and Hinata remembers a day like this last Christmas, when he couldn't have imagined his life would change so much but still stay the same.

By this time next year, he wonders what will be different. He hopes Kageyama is there, making that same face as he touches his toes.

He looks serious. He always looks serious, about everything. His eyes are naturally narrow, and his mouth's resting position is more or less a frown, kind of like that eternally grumpy cat Kenma always reblogs on Tumblr. He likes his grumpy face, though. He likes everything about him.

Kageyama looks up at him, then, and catches his eyes. And his mouth stretches in that slow, kinda-creepy smile that is so electric and genuine that Hinata can't be held responsible for what he says next.

"I love you," he blurts.

"You _what_?" Kageyama seems to forget how to use his arms and abruptly faceplants into the grass.

"Love you," he says, steadier, more sure. "Let's see the light show again this year. In Tokyo."

"I--that," Kageyama says, still flabbergasted.

"And exchange presents. And eat cake," Hinata continues excitedly.

"M-me too."

Hinata flaps his hands at him. "Of course you get cake, too, that's the whole point, to eat it together."

"No, I mean, me too. About the thing you said. Before."

Hinata stares. "Kageyama, are you too shy to say you love me?"

" _No_ ," Kageyama hisses, which, of course, means yes.

"You are," Hinata says, warmed by the thought. Even though he's not done stretching, he gets up, plops down in Kageyama's lap and winds his arms around his neck. "You love me," he says, softer, and he can literally see the white puff of his breath lingering together with Kageyama's.

"So what," Kageyama mutters. His arms come up and clasp behind Hinata's back, fingers tracing the soft curve of his spine.

"It's nice." Nuzzling forward, he rests his face in the crook of Kageyama's neck and smiles. The sweat on his skin is drying, cooling, leaving him chilled. Kageyama is so warm in comparison, and Hinata slides his hands under his shirt, stealing his heat, absorbing it through his fingertips.

"What're you doing?"

"Kageyama," he sighs happily into his neck, even though that's not an answer. He burrows his nose against Kageyama's reassuring pulse and says it again, over and over, because he can. "Kageyama, Kageyama, Kageyama."

Kageyama seems to understand whatever weird ritual he's creating, because he kisses the top of his head and mutters, "Jackass," and lets him stay there until both of them are shivering and it's time to head back.

When Hinata is swiping his ID to let them both back into the dorm, Kageyama catches his hand and holds it, squeezes it so hard his knuckles hurt.

Hinata looks up at him questioningly and says, "What?"

"Do you--want to go ice skating, too?" Kageyama asks.

Hinata's answer is the way he shoves him up against the door once they're inside his room, the way he kisses him until both their mouths are red and wet, the way he touches him in broad strokes underneath his clothes, in a resounding yes.

(He gives him the tie clip at the light show, and Kageyama clips it to his jacket even though that's _totally_ not what it's for, with a quietly uttered, "Dumbass," and lips brushing Hinata's forehead.)

 * * *

Next time, it's Hinata who gets scouted first.

The call from the Men's National Volleyball team comes one sleepy, rainy Saturday morning when they both have the day off, Hinata folded in Kageyama's arms as they lounge on a collection of cheap pillows and watch TV.

"Don't answer it," Kageyama says when Hinata's cell phone rings. His arms tighten around Hinata's waist and something hot curls in Hinata's stomach.

"What if it's Coach," he says, reaching, trying to pull the phone toward him with just the power of his mind. "What if there's an emergency practice?"

"Not even Waseda hellspawn is that cruel," Kageyama says with a pointed look at the weather outside.

"Kageyamaaaa," he says, making grabby hands.

"Fine." Kageyama's reach is longer, so he grabs the phone and shoves it in his face before it can stop ringing.

Hinata pauses a moment to stick his tongue out before flipping the phone open. "Hello?"

He's expecting Coach, or maybe Kuroo or Kenma calling from their place to harass them. What answers is a very proper, polite voice, and Hinata only listens for a few moments before he starts shrieking, and then he's rocketing out of Kageyama's arms in an explosion of pillows and one upended bottle of Pocari Sweat.

Kageyama hastily rights the spill and throws a pillow over the stain, because they're both slobs and they don't care about little things like stains, and stares intensely at Hinata. "What?" he says, urgently.

Hinata shrieks incoherently at him in return.

Kageyama stands too, then, to smack the back of his head so hard his teeth click together, and snaps, "Stop yelling and start making sense."

"The national league," he finally manages to say, as the tinny voice in his ear asks him to please calm down. He doesn't care. His skin is buzzing, his eyes are wet, and he's fucking exhilarated. At Kageyama's bug-eyed look, he continues, high-pitched and overwhelmed, "They're offering me a spot on the national league team!"

"Did you accept?" Kageyama asks.

"No, I forgot!" After nearly fumbling the phone twice, he presses it back up to his ear and says, "Hello? Yes, I'm still here--yes, I'm sorry, it won't happen again!"

He paces around their ridiculously tiny apartment as much as space allows, stepping carefully over trash and laundry and abandoned textbooks as the stranger on the other end introduces himself again--Hinata immediately forgot his name, because he's an over-excitable moron--and explains everything, sometimes multiple times when Hinata can't believe this is reality and needs to hear it again.

Throughout the process, Kageyama sits on the pillows and watches him with a look of intense concentration he usually reserves for setting. He stares so much that Hinata's neck starts itching, his skin hot beneath his collar. The rain still pattering against the window is looking more and more refreshing.

"What're you lookin' at?" he asks when he finally flips his phone shut, the warmth of the offer and Kageyama's stare still bubbling in his chest. It comes out a little more defensive than he intended.

"You," Kageyama says, rather than rising to the bite in Hinata's tone, and his mouth curves slowly upwards.

"Well, obviously!" He crawls on the pillows next to him and pokes his face. "What about me?"

"You look happy," he says, smacking Hinata's hand away.

"I am happy." So happy. Like, ridiculously happy. He nuzzles his nose against the place he poked and enjoys the way Kageyama turns red.

"So, congratulations." Kageyama clears his throat and puts his hand in Hinata's hair. "But I won't lose to you."

"You'd better not. I can't wait to hit your toss again," he says. Just the thought of it makes his palms itch. Or maybe his hands are just hot because they're so close to Kageyama's waist, and he loves the feeling of Kageyama's hipbones almost as much as the hard curve of a volleyball.

"You do that every Sunday," Kageyama snorts.

"In a match, in a match!"

He sighs and ruffles his hair. "Yeah, okay. In a match."

Hinata grins, satisfied, and tucks his head under Kageyama's chin. He's practically vibrating out of his skin with excitement, with the need to go to Kenma's and leap on him and Kuroo and tell them the news, but he knows bone-deep there's something important about this moment. So he hugs Kageyama's waist with his head pressed against Kageyama's collarbone and listens to the steady, reassuring thump of his heart.

Eventually, his patience is rewarded, as Kageyama hides his face in Hinata's hair and presses his lips to his scalp. Hinata feels Kageyama's lips form the words, "Don't worry. I'll even the score soon enough."

Hinata's counting on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL, okay, I did a search and I used some variation of the word fuck SIXTY-THREE times in this fic. Thank you, teenage boys, for having such foul fucking mouths.
> 
> Anyway, thank YOU, dear reader person, for reading my crap. First Haikyuu!! fic, etc. This fandom is a gem.

**Author's Note:**

> please come yell about sports anime with me on [tumblr](http://reeology.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/reeology)


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